Maker of page-wide color inkjet-printing technology Memjet has filed a patent-infringement lawsuit on August 11th against Hewlett-Packard in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, alleging that HP infringed on eight Memjet patents related to Memjet’s page-wide “waterfall” printing technology.
Memjet’s complaint asserts that HP infringed on the following eight patents:
U.S. Patent No. 6,575,549, “Ink Jet Fault Tolerance Using Adjacent Nozzles.”
U.S. Patent No. 6,880,914, “Inkjet Pagewidth Printer For High Volume Pagewidth Printing.”
U.S. Patent No. 7,156,492, “Modular Printhead Assembly With A Carrier Of A Metal Alloy.”
U.S. Patent No. 7,325,986, titled “Printhead Assembly with Stacked Ink Distribution Sheets.”
U.S. Patent No. 8,662,636, titled “Inkjet Printhead Having Rows Of Printhead Segments.”
U.S. Patent No. 8,678,550, titled “Printhead Assembly With Laminated Ink Distribution Stack.”
U.S. Patent No. 8,696,096, titled “Laminated Ink Supply Structure Mounted In Ink Distribution Arrangement Of An Inkjet Printer.”
U.S. Patent No. 9,056,475, titled “Inkjet Printer With Web Feed Maintenance Assembly.”
Memjet’s lawsuit seeks both to stop Hewlett-Packard from its alleged unauthorized use of Memjet’s patented page-wide waterfall technology, and to recover damages resulting from Hewlett-Packard’s use of that patented technology in HP’s PageWide printer products, including the Officejet Pro X generation of office printers, T-Series commercial presses, and PageWide XL series products. HP has also stated its intention to use its PageWide Technology across its printing portfolio, including in future wide-format and 3D printers.
Memjet states that it’s “invested substantial resources in the research and development of its page-wide waterfall technology over the last decade,” and has protected that investment through the development of its significant patent portfolio, including several thousand U.S. and foreign patents in the page-wide inkjet printing market.
HP has big plans for its Page Wide technology and if this court votes in favour of Memjet then HP will face one of the most serious challenges in recent years.
