Californian company Soldcrazy has been served with a Seizure and Forfeiture Order by the United States International Trade Commission.
The order, seen by The Recycler and dated the 9th of April, was handed down by Steven Mnuchin, Secretary to the Treasury, after Soldcrazy violated a previous exclusion order served in May 2016.
The order states that the company attempted to import ink cartridges into the US, that were already covered by the general exclusion order; the attempted importation was refused by US Customs officials, who then gave the attempted importer notice of the Seizure and Forfeiture Order.
As a result, Ontario, California-based Soldcrazy are barred from any further imports – if they again attempt such a move, any “ink cartrdiges and components thereof” concerned “are to be seized and forfeited to the United States.” This applies not only to Soldcrazy, but to “any affiliated companies, parents, subsidiaries, or other related business entities, or any of their successors or assigns.”
It is the second difficult incident for Soldcrazy in the last few months, following the lawsuit brought against the company by Epson last July. In the US District Court of California, the OEM accused it – and Prinko Image Co., another Californian company – of importing and selling cartrdiges that infringed Epson’s patents, US6,502,917 and US8,794,749, which were issued in 2003 and 2014 respectively.
Soldcrazy, which operates online as Lovetoners, were accused by the OEM after selling cartridges on various online platforms which were marketed as compatible with at least ten models of Epson printer. Prior to that lawsuit, it was previously served with another Seizure and Forfeiture Order in June 2015.
This latest order from USITC is the third issued already in 2018.
