The USITC’s headquarters in Washington D.C.
The OEM is seeking a General Exclusion Order (GEO) against 19 aftermarket companies over the infringement of one to five of its inkjet cartridge patents, specifically in terms of chips on “on-carriage cartridges” from a previous GEO.
The action is said by the OEM to “protect against unfair competition”, and the GEO seeks to block “all imports of ink cartridges that infringe Epson’s ink cartridge patents” from 19 companies that it claims “manufacture, import or distribute aftermarket ink cartridges in the United States that infringe one or more of five Epson patents”.
The complaint was filed by two Epson US subsidiaries – Epson Portland Inc. and Epson America Inc. – alongside Seiko Epson Corp., and “requests the ITC to issue a General Exclusion Order prohibiting these companies and all others from importing the infringing cartridges into the United States”. The OEM added that it previously obtained a GEO in an action in 2006 “that is still enforced” concerning a “broad range of on-carriage cartridges” for both consumer and business inkjet machines.
These cartridges are “installed immediately behind the printhead of inkjet printers”, and the case concerns alleged infringement of five further patents that “relate to the functionality of IC chips on many of the same on-carriage cartridges” covered in the previous GEO in 2006. Epson adds that the new case also concerns “many off-carriage cartridges for current Epson business and professional large-format inkjet printers”, with off-carriage cartridges “larger capacity cartridges installed to the side of the printer cartridge and connected to the printhead with ink supply tubes”.
In terms of the US patents named in the action, these include: 8,366,233; 8,454,116; 8,794,749; 8,801,163 and 8,882,513, and the nineteen companies consist of the following:
-Zhuhai Nano Digital Technology Co., Ltd.
-Nano Business & Technology, Inc.
-Zhuhai National Resources & Jingjie Imaging Products Co. Ltd.
-Huebon Co., Ltd.
-Chancen Co. Ltd.
-Zhuhai Rich Imaging Technology Co., Ltd.
-Shanghai Orink Infotech International Co.Ltd.
-Orink Infotech International Co. Ltd.
-Zinyaw LLC
-Yotat Group Co., Ltd.
-Yotat (Zhuhai) Technology Co. Ltd.
-Ourway Image Co. Ltd.
-Kingway Image Co. Ltd.
-Zhuhai Chinamate Technology Co. Ltd.
-InkPro2day, LLC
-Dongguan Ocbestjet Printer Consumables Co. Ltd.
-Ocbestjet Printer Consumables (HK) Co. Ltd.
-Aomya Printer Consumables (Zhuhai) Co. Ltd.
-Zhuhai Richeng Development Co. Ltd.
Epson commented: “Epson has made continuous worldwide investments in R&D and large investments in manufacturing in the United States to produce high quality, innovative cartridges. These ITC actions are part of Epson’s worldwide efforts to protect the company and its customers from unfair competition of all types, including the sale of patent-infringing ink cartridges.”