Business

QI Press Controls has said that it will go to appeal after press control specialist QuadTech was granted a preliminary injunction against the company.

The injunction, which is effective in Germany only, prohibits QI from marketing or selling its Markless Register Control (MRC) system.

The Regional Court of Düsseldorf ruled on 17 June that QI had infringed QuadTech’s German patent covering the markless mode.

QI launched the MRC at Drupa 2008, where it claimed that the system was the only operational, fully automatic colour and cut-off register system for web offset presses.

In a statement, QI said that it will respect the ruling not to sell, bring to market, use or import the MRC markless mode in Germany.

However, it will continue to sell the MRC technology that runs with the same micro marks as its IRS system. The company will appeal the Regional Court of Düsseldorf’s decision.

According to QuadTech president Karl Fritchen, the injunction has been sought to prevent unauthorised use of its technology. He said it had been determined that the QI system is a copy of a QuadTech system patented in 1992.
He said: To the extent that others infringe QuadTech’s intellectual property, we will evaluate those instances on a case-by-case bases and act accordingly to protect our rights.

The company holds patents for the same technology in a number of other countries.