A Memjet printhead
Kambiz Izadi, Vice President for Legal Affairs, said that the patent litigation could “take a significant amount of time”.
Neal McChristy, who regularly produces the wide-format column for The Recycler, got in touch with the executive, who said this type of case is “complicated” and that “as far as how long that will take, that’s to be seen. It’s something that really depends on the actions of both parties”.
The manufacturer first took HP to court in August 2015 over alleged infringement of eight patents, with reference to Memjet’s PageWide technology.
The PageWide printhead technology is used in the OEM’s Pro X generation of office printers, its T-Series of commercial presses and its PageWide XL series of machines, and Memjet says that HP “has stated its intention to use its PageWide technology across its printing portfolio including in future wide-format and 3D printers”.
Izadi explained that “the litigation on our side has to do with (our) PageWide waterfall printing technology. That’s our general technology and that’s the patents that we’re claiming are around”, and also said Memjet does not have any other patent cases of this type on-going at present.
HP has since filed a counterclaim in the case, alleging infringement of a number of its own patents in October. Izadi said of the counterclaim: “I can’t really comment on the specifics of the litigation and strategy, but I would say generally, in patent litigation, it’s not uncommon if one party makes a claim that the other party would do the same.”
McChristy also contacted HP, who replied that: “As a matter of company policy, HP does not comment on ongoing legal cases.”