Memjet and HP reach settlement

Memjet and HP have reached a ‘global settlement’ in their dispute over patent infringements.

Last year Memjet filed a claim in the United States District Court in California alleging that Hewlett-Packard Company had infringed eight of its patents relating to its own trademarked ‘Waterfall’ single-pass page-wide inkjet technology. The claim involved HP’s T-series inkjet web presses and PageWide printers.

In a statement regarding the settlement, Memjet said: “Memjet and HP Inc. have reached a global settlement that includes the dismissal of all current actions between the parties and a cross-license. The terms of the settlement are confidential."

Memjet chief executive Len Lauer said: “We are pleased to have reached a settlement with HP. We will continue to stay focused on creating innovative printing technology that enables our customers to realise optimal speeds, quality and costs.”

Memjet had also filed a patent infringement claim in Munich relating to HP’s sales of HP PageWide XL Series printers in Germany. The claim was initially upheld by a judge who put a preliminary injunction on sales of the products in the country. This was lifted in February this year however, when the court ruled that the grounds for issuing the injunction had not been satisfied.

At the time HP’s head of large-format printing, EMEA, Thomas Valjak, said: “HP vigorously defends its intellectual property and is pleased with the court’s ruling in our favour.

“We will now re-engage with our resellers and customers in Germany and offer HP’s PageWide XL printers and printheads that employ unique technology developed by HP over the last decades.”

HP’s single-pass PageWide wide-format range was released in April last year, while the T-series was officially launched at Drupa 2008.