Federal court clears REPEAT-O-TYPE of H-P inkjet patent infringement

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Dateline -- Wayne, NJ, August 18, 1997 -- REPEAT-O-TYPE MANUFACTURING CORPORATION won a key battle in its ongoing legal fight with HEWLETT-PACKARD COMPANY last week when the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a lower court's ruling that Repeat-O-Type's sale of modified inkjet cartridges did not infringe on Hewlett-Packard's patents.

In the case which dates back to 1992, Hewlett-Packard had charged that new HP tri-color inkjet cartridges which were purchased by Repeat-O-Type, modified so that they can be refilled, and then sold along with Repeat-O-Type refill inks in Repeat-O-Type branded packaging infringed patents held by HP. Similar charges were made regarding a series of Repeat-O-Type products which included a new HP black inkjet cartridge from which the ink was purged and replaced with Repeat-O-Type's colored ink.

At the core of Repeat-O-Type's defense was the assertion that once having lawfully and unconditionally purchased the Hewlett-Packard cartridges, HP's patent rights had become exhausted and Repeat-O-Type was entitled to perform repairs on property that it owned. Hewlett-Packard had argued that Repeat-O-Type was engaging in "impermissible reconstruction" rather than "permissible repair". The court ruled, however, that impermissible reconstruction did not take place, because the cartridges were new and had not been "spent".

The full text of the court ruling is available on the internet at http://repeatotype.com/documents/96-1379_doc.html.

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Repeat-O-Type Manufacturing Corp. is a family owned corporation that has been engaged in the manufacture of office reprographic products since 1931. The company specializes in cost saving aftermarket supplies for use in inkjet and digital duplicating equipment.

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