Patent Law

Ink Spilled

By Gary Odom and Jordan Kuhn

Printer makers follow the razor blade business model: the razor is a loss leader to the highly profitable blades. So, with inkjet printers, the lucre accrues from selling the ink. To wit, Seiko Epson has just sued six inking infringers over its ink cartridge patents. Epson recently won a tentative ruling at the ITC over a few parties in its suite attack against two dozen companies from China, Germany, Hong Kong, Korea and the U.S. Epson has filed five suits in the recent past, four in the District of Oregon, a somewhat sleepy but quite competent district for patent adjudication.

The patents in suit: 5,615,957; 5,622,439; 5,158,377; 5,221,148; 5,488,401; 6,502,917; 6,193,364; 6,550,901; 6,834,945; 6,832,830; 6,916,089; 6,948,804; 7,008,053; 7,011,397; 7,018,030; 7,152,965; and 7,125,100.

Full post as published by The Patent Prospector on June 21, 2009 (boomark / email).