HP PageWide inkjet head
HP PageWide inkjet head
By Ed Avis
Last Friday a German judge threw out an injunction against Hewlett-Packard selling its PageWide wide-format printer in Germany that had been in place for the past two and a half months. The injunction came at the behest of Memjet, which claimed the single-pass inkjet technology HP uses in PageWide violated Memjet’s patents.
In its ruling, the Court concluded the grounds for issuing the injunction were not satisfied, that HP had evidently not violated Memjet’s patents. Memjet has one month to file an appeal of the decision.
“HP vigorously defends its intellectual property and is pleased with the court’s ruling in our favor,” said Thomas Valjak, head of Large-Format Printing, EMEA, HP Inc. “We will now re-engage with our resellers and customers in Germany and offer HP’s PageWide XL printers and print heads that employ unique technology developed by HP over the last decades.”
The German suit was one battle in the patent war between the two companies. Achim Carius, executive director of motio, the German reprographics association, has been following the case closely because it affects his members. He explained that the German courts are well known for handling patent issues, and for their speed in issuing injunctions.
While Friday’s ruling definitely can be seen as a victory for HP, the bigger issue now is the suit filed in August on the same grounds in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California in San Diego. The first hearing in the U.S. case is scheduled for June 9, so it will likely be a while before the issue is completely settled.
As far as the Germans are concerned, there is divided opinion about whether Memjet will eventually prevail. In a message to motio members, Carius quoted Thomas Rauh, a PageWide specialist at a national HP dealer in Germany, who said, “My feeling that Memjet will not be successful here was confirmed today. We can continue our sales strategy.” However, Carius, who is an attorney, was less certain. He wrote, “The uncertainty for our member companies will only be completely eliminated when the main court proceedings in San Diego have been decided, or if HP takes over its smaller competitor Memjet.”
Memjet did not respond to requests for comment for this article.