Hewlett Packard Lawsuit - Mipo Compatible Cartridge

Hijacking a truck with reels of raw printheads. Is this the Chinese version of the "Italian Job"?  If you can't make a fraudulent cartridge, just steal one. Could Microjet/Mipo just accidentally overproduced some raw printheads and accidentally ship to another customer when HP cut production?

See the actual HP Legal Documents - Interesting read for us inkjet geeks.  Hello Amazon, these fraudulent inkjet cartridges are still on your site.

Chinese Rivals Hijacked Trucks to Steal Technology, HP Says
By MARIA DINZEO
 
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - Hewlett Packard claims Chinese and Taiwanese competitors stole patented printer cartridge components from HP's factory in Singapore and copied them to sell made-to-order counterfeit HP inkjet cartridges on Amazon.com. "Trucks carrying HP parts were hijacked while en route from the manufacturing facility in Singapore to the assembly plant in Malaysia ... in direct response to the heightened security measures that had been implemented in HP production facilities," HP says.



After ripping off the technology, Hewlett Packard says, Microjet Technology (of Taiwan) Mipo Technology (of Hong Kong and mainland China), and their U.S. affiliates, including SinoTime Technologies (of Florida) sold more than 300,000 of the inkjet cartridges in the United States. The defendants have the capability to make nearly 10 million counterfeit cartridges a year in Asia, Hewlett Packard says.


The 28-page federal filing is the latest in a long line of complaints that China is making up its technology gap with the United States through industrial espionage, theft, and wholesale patent infringement.


MicroJet "sells generic and/or made-to-order infringing ink cartridges to other companies, including defendants Mipo and PTC [PTC Holdings Ltd., of Hong Kong]," and sells them itself as well, Hewlett Packard says. HP claims the defendants violated six patents after stealing the HP components.


Hewlett Packard says it discovered the scheme after seeing color ink cartridges for sale on Amazon.com and Craigslist, advertised as "HP compatible."


HP bought some of the cartridges from Amazon.com, then used HP's internal tracking database to cross-reference ID numbers on components, and found that the cartridges had "a genuine HP printhead and a non-HP cartridge body that closely resembled a genuine HP cartridge body."


And it found that the printheads came from HP lots from Malaysia that had never been assembled by HP - "i.e., were identified as production gaps." All of these stolen items "were packaged in a 'Mipo' labeled box and were individually wrapped in a clear plastic interior packaging that is clearly consistent with the standard packaging for products manufactured by defendant Microjet," according to the complaint.


HP demands an injunction and damages for patent infringement, unfair competition and conversion.
 
Other sources of information:
Businessweek
CNBC
ITC Law Blog
Nukote, Clover Lawsuit Case Number: CV 10 0965

Counterfeit Inkjet Printing on the Rise

We found this interesting article from the Kansas City Star about how there is an increase in making counterfeit money with inkjet printers. Wow, that is alot of inkjet cartridges.

"The result: Ink-jet counterfeiting accounted for 60 percent of $103 million in fake money removed from circulation from October 2007 to August 2008, the Secret Service reports. In 1995, the figure was less than 1 percent."

Note - President Abraham Lincoln created the Secret Service in 1865 to deal with a crisis which one-third of the nation’s money was counterfeit. Did Abe ever think of an inkjet printer? How many inkjet cartridges does it take to print that amount of money? What is HP's cut on this?

eBay and Counterfeit Product

A recent press release from eBay about winning a legal battle about counterfeit claims.

After reading this press release from eBay made me wonder how much counterfeit, patent or trademark infringing, stolen product and fraudulent orders are actually happening on eBay.

Does this effect eBay's bottom line profit, or just the crooks?

What are your thoughts?