The case for CTP Innovations and High Quality Printing Innovations (HQPI) has been dismissed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas and has been claimed as a “victory for the printing industry”.
Whattheythink reported that this was the most recent and biggest patent troll case to come to court against OEM’s in the printing industry and was the “last of the alleged patent infringement cases filed by CTP Innovations and High Quality Printing Innovations”.
On 19 May the court ruled: “On this date came for consideration the Motion to Dismiss Pursuant to Rule 41(a)(2). The Court being of the opinion that same should be GRANTED, it is therefore, ORDERED that the Motion to Dismiss be and hereby is GRANTED and that all of Plaintiff’s claims in this action are hereby dismissed with prejudice, all of the Defendant’s affirmative defences and other defences in this action are hereby dismissed without prejudice, all of Defendant’s counterclaims in this action are hereby dismissed with prejudice.”
The article noted that lawyers in previous cases for the plaintiffs were “unsuccessful in their demands for license fees to use technology […] provided by OEMs and used by the printing industry’s service providers”.
Nate St. Clair was the lead lawyer successfully defending the accused printers and OEMs and although unable to discuss specifics of the settlement he was clear that Quad/Graphics was “happy with the over all outcome”.
Harvey Levenson, Cal Poly Professor Emeritus defines patent trolls as: …”a company or individual having nothing to do with developing and distributing the technology that patents teach, but buys-up patents for the sole purpose of exploiting individuals or companies using technology that even remotely relates to a patent’s claims.”
Levenson commented: “Let this be a lesson to other patent trolls attempting to extort funds from printing industry service providers and OEMs using equipment and software generic to the industry,” while St. Clair said: “While all of the cases have been dismissed, the patents still exist, and the industry should be vigilant of any further suits. Though it is not likely to happen in the case of this plaintiff, it could happen with other plaintiffs and other patents describing software-driven technology for the printing industry.”
The existing patents are: U.S. Patent No. 6,738,155 – SYSTEM AND METHOD OF PROVIDING PUBLISHING AND PRINTING SERVICES VIA COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK – Filed on July 30, 1999.
U.S. Patent No. 6,611,349 – SYSTEM AND METHOD OF GENERATING A PRINTING PLATE FILE IN REAL TIME USING A COMMUNICATION NETWORK – Filed on July 30, 1999.
US Patent No. 6012070 A – DIGITAL DESIGN STATION PROCEDURE – Filed on November 15, 1996.
The case has been considered so serious that a free seminar for OEMs and print service providers has been organised by PRINT 17 and will be led by Levenson in Chigago 11 September 2017.