26 companies face Canon’s ITC 337 complaint for allegedly breaching one or more of ten Canon patents, that relate to the Canon imageRUNNER series of copiers.
Canon lawyers were back in court filing of a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) against 26 manufacturers, distributors and sellers of toner supply containers. Canon alleges the 26 companies sell products that infringe one of more of their patents that relate to the Canon imageRUNNER series of copiers.
The companies are:
| Anhuiyatengshangmaoyouxiangongsi | NAR Cartridges |
| ChengDuXiangChangNanShiYouSheBeiYouXianGongSi | Ninestar Corporation |
| Copier Repair Specialists, Inc. | Ninestar Image Tech Limited |
| Digital Marketing Corporation | Ninestar Technology Company, Ltd. |
| Do It Wiser LLC | Shenzhenshi Keluodeng Kejiyouxiangognsi |
| Easy Group, LLC | Sichuan Wiztoner Technology Co., Ltd. |
| General Plastic Industrial Co. Ltd. | Sichuan XingDian Technology Co., Ltd. |
| Hefeierlandianzishangwuyouxiangongsi | Static Control Components, Inc. |
| Ink Technologies Printer Supplies, LLC | Sun Data Supply, Inc. |
| Katun Corporation | The Supplies Guys, LLC |
| Kuhlmann Enterprises, Inc. | Xianshi yanliangqu canqiubaihuodianshanghang |
| LD Products, Inc. | Zhuhai Henyun Image Co., Ltd. |
| MITOCOLOR INC. | Zinyaw LLC |
Canon asserts the following patents have been infringed: 8,565,649; 9,354,551; 9,753,402; 10,209,667; 10,289,060; 10,289,061; 10,295,957; 10,488,814; 10,496,032; 10,496,033; 10,514,654; 10,520,881; and 10,520,882.
The patents relate to the Canon imageRUNNER copier series and the following toner supply containers: GPR-51, GPR-52, GPR-53, GPR-53/GPR-53L, GPR-55/GPR-55L, GPR-57, GPR-58 and GPR-62.
Apart from the ITC complaint, Canon also announced the filing of complaints against those companies in various U.S. district courts across the country.
In April last year Canon lost an appeal against an earlier decision of the ITC in their investigation No. 337-TA-1106 where Aster Graphics, Ninestar Corporation, Static Control Components and Print-Rite were accused of infringing a number of its patents but were found not to be in breach of the patents. The Recycler news team has that story here.
Our take on this story: With the exception of a few OEMs, they are all in trouble as print declines and the trend moves away from A3 to A4 and from laser to ink. For Canon, their image runner series is their bread and butter copier range. If the aftermarket eats into that segment, Canon will be on the back foot even more. Or is this a battle between two OEMs (Canon and Xerox) fought through the 26 proxies? Canon were in trouble the minute Xerox launched their everyday range of consumables, some of which are produced by one or more of the current list of complainants. It is necessary risk for Canon, but the stakes are high as this complaint winds its way through the system.
