An ITC proceeding takes place at a rapid pace and all will be said and done within 18 months of its initiation. However, unlike the previous ITC complaints filed by Canon, this new complaint will have a Markman hearing at the end of August 2018. This event sets the stage for the January 2019 trial.
After Canon's announcement on March 2, 2018, that it had filed a complaint with the United States International Trade Commission alleging patent infringement by 49 manufacturers, distributors, and resellers on specific laser cartridges used in certain Canon and Hewlett Packard printers, there has been a flurry of activity.
Many of the same companies from the 2014 ITC complaint are now back in front of the ITC as respondents in the 2018 case, ironically defending themselves on patent infringement claims for the very designs they implemented to resolve the 2014 matter.
Labeling new-build aftermarket cartridges as clones may be an effective strategy for discrediting the ever-increasing threat they represent to the remanufacturing business model, but it is wrong to apply the clone label to all new-build cartridges.
How can the patent system be exploited to permit design-around invented by aftermarket competitors in the 2014 timeframe to be patented years later by the OEM, who then takes legal action to try and enforce them against the same companies that invented them?
