On June 28, 2013, the United States International Trade Commission issued a General Exclusion Order (GEO) prohibiting the importation of products that infringe two U.S. patents belonging to Canon, numbers ‘803 and ‘454, which cover the design of the gears used on the OPC drums in hundreds of Canon and HP cartridge SKUs.
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The GEO concludes various legal actions which began in January 2012 against more than 30 manufacturers, importers and distributors of toner cartridges and OPC drums and ushers in a new phase of enforcement. Static Control recognised the potential threat of patent infringement and successfully developed a unique, fully functional gear designed to eliminate any risk of infringing Canon’s gear patents. We filed for patents in 2007 and two U.S. patents for non-twisted gears were issued to Static Control in October 2010 and December 2011.
Our ZeroTwist Gears were the first-to-market solution for remanufacturers and are still the only solution protected by multiple U.S. patents. As we have stated for more than 18 months, our gears are safe and will not be impacted by the GEO. We take all patents extremely serious and respect the intellectual property of the OEMs through the development, engineering and manufacturing process.
