Recycling Times Magazine English - Issue 25-April 2012

Recycling Times Magazine

editorial

RecyclingTimes The magazine by the industry, for the industry.

Publisher & Managing Director Tony Lee +86 (0)756 3919260 Directors David Gibbons +86 (0)756 3919261 Sabrina Lo +86 (0)756 3919266 Editorial Consulting Editor Art Diamond Editors Tina Chou +86 (0)756 3959286 Tina.Chou@iRecyclingTimes.com Doris Huang +86 (0)756 3919268 Doris.Huang@iRecyclingTimes.com Sophia Jiang Sophia.Jiang@iRecyclingTimes.com Jane Yu Jane.Yu@iRecyclingTimes.com Jeven Zhang Jeven.Zhang@iRecyclingTimes.com Designer Miracle Wei Miracle.Wei@iRecyclingTimes.com Kevin Deng Kevin.Deng@iRecyclingTimes.com Sales Sales Manager Anna Liang +86 (0)756 3919266 Account Manager Kevin Zhu +86 (0)756 3919265 Sales Executives Sally He +86 (0)756 3919263 Tobee Deng +86 (0)756 3919282 Susi Guo +86 (0)756 3959299 Operation and Marketing Operation Manager Charles Lee +86 (0)756 3919267 Frank Yang +86 (0)756 3959280 Operations Assistant Sunny Zhang +86 (0)756 3959282 Sam Lee +86 (0)756 3959299 Accounting Betty Lee +86 (0)756 3919269 Joy He +86 (0)756 3919262 Marketing Supervisor Jessica Yin magazine@therecycler.com.cn +86 (0) 756 3919264 Tracy Zhang +86 (0)756 3959283 Howard Qiu +86 (0)756 3959281 Published by Recycling Times Media Corporation Address 5F, Pacific Insurance Building, Jiuzhou Ave, Zhuhai, 519000

RecyclingTimes

Tel: +86 (0)756 3220716 Fax: +86 (0)756 3220717 Email: info@iRecycingTimes.com Website: www.iRecycingTimes.com

2

www.iRecyclingTimes.com | April 2012

www.iRecyclingTimes.com

I

n an effort to attract more customers, both Epson and Brother lowered their cartridge prices in China last year. Epson ink cartridges were lowered to RMB 29 ($4.60 USD) and Brother toner cartridges fell to RMB 199 ($31.54 USD). In contradiction to these price cuts, Hewlett Packard recently raised cartridge prices from a slight increase for its 126 LaserJet toner cartridges, to a 15% hike for the HP 951 and almost 20% for its HP 950 Officejet ink cartridges.

These price boosts were viewed as an attempt by HP to ease its financial problems. Perhaps another indication of HP’s concern with dwindling profits was the merger on March 20 of its Imaging and Printing Group (IPG) and Personal Systems Group (PSG), a realignment expected to provide opportunities for cost savings and accelerate HP’s ability to pursue profitable growth.

Indeed, HP’s latest financial report indicates the Imaging and Printing Group (IPG) is facing big challenges. IPG accounts for about 20% of the company’s total revenue, more than receipts from enterprise, servers, memories and internet business operations combined.

Most OEMs apply the “razors and blades model” to their printer and cartridge business strategy, namely, lose money on the printer but earn high profits on the consumables. So does HP, as evidenced by price reductions on a total of 8 HP printers. Three models of the HP LaserJet Enterprise 500 color Printer M551 series showed slight decrease while another 5 models experienced drops of more than 12%, with the most dramatic price drop at 25%.

According to research by International Data Corporation (IDC), HP shipped 0.7% fewer printers in 2011 compared to 2010, a period during which Canon, Samsung and Brother shipped more machines. In addition, HP performed poorly in key markets, with total USA shipments shrinking 12% from 4.8 million units in 2010 to only 4.2 million units in 2011. HP also noticed this and not only released more new models in order to recapture market share, but also lowered prices for its newlyreleased printers.

Keep this in mind—supplies are the “breadwinners” of IPG. However, the IPG consumables business had been disappointing. IPG revenue was $25.78 billion USD in 2011, almost the same as the $25.76 billion USD sakes in 2010. But the “breadwinner,” which normally accounts for twothirds of IPG revenue, saw a decline in 2011 for the first time in recent years. This decline has a great influence on IPG performance.

Generally, sales of printer consumables lag behind sales of new printers with a delay of about 6 months. Therefore, launching new printers at elevated prices indicates HP is struggling for profit.

Nevertheless, introducing new models will result in more printer installations, an outcome that spells opportunity for suppliers of imaging materials to the aftermarket.

Tony Lee Publisher & Managing Director

All rights reserved. © 2011 by Recycling Times Media Corporation. The contents are not be to copied or republished without official written consent. The editorial content does not represent official positions of Recycling Times Media Corporation.

Recycling Times Magazine

contents

Update 2012: patent & legal review There are many patent and legal actions in progress at present. This brief summary and update on where things currently stand should prove useful to OEM and aftermarket industry managers and executives.

www.recyclingtimes.com.cn

Just a Minute

04

Time to remodel

The smartphone and tablet opportunity in printing The paperless office has failed to materialise, with email and the internet actually leading to the creation of more printed documents.

Money From Home

05

The golden days at Kodak Park

Industry Updates

Monthly briefing on new printers February 2012 Among all new product releases through out the period from December 2011 through February 2012, Japan wins with 109 new models, followed

by China and Russia. In general, emerging markets remain quite active, but Brazil and India gave a poor showing.

Gala celebrates 30 year anniversary 06 Print-Rite Seine launches Pantum printers at Germany’s CeBIT Fair

08 Clover expands Canadian facility

OCP expands R&D & plant facilities Recycling Times launches new URL

09

Metrofuser intros ZeroSet tech for remanufactured HP CP4025/CP4525 fusers InfoTrends reports on the European printing industry

OEM News wide-format & A4 printers from Ricoh 19 New More personal printers from Canon

10 One more choice

India printer market declined in 4Q 2011

Product Release trumpets high-yield toner cartridges 12 MSE OCP releases pigmented inks for HP, Epson printers

14 Integral fields toner for Kyocera Mita printers CET intros spare parts for desktop printers Goat Labs unveils toners for HP printers

15 APEX offers chips for HP & Canon color printers

UTec announces alternative Kyocera toner cartridges

Features

20 Update 2012: patent & legal review 27 The smartphone and tablet opportunity in printing Profiles Van Klaveren juggles 3 spheres "cartridge collection,

29 charities and the environment" Legal Issues

33 Brief introduction on the damages of false patent marking OEM News combines printer & PC groups 16 HP Atman settles patent dispute with Canon

18 OKI resumes production at Thai plant

Market Data

37 Monthly briefing on new printers February 2012

Adobe’s “LeanPrint” software conserves ink & toner Xerox adds two UK resellers Collins Ink wants to look at Kodak’s books

19

Two new laser printers from Panasonic

Tech Zone Remanufacturing the HP color LaserJet Enterprise CP5225

42 series black and color toner cartridges April 2012 |

www.iRecyclingTimes.com

3

Recycling Times Magazine

Just a Minute with David Gibbons

Time to remodel The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson wrote and published an article about the collapse of print advertising. InfoTrends analyst Jeff Hayes blogged, “After looking at the chart my reaction was - Holy Schlitz!”

Advertising spend in newspapers and magazines in North America has fallen to $21 billion—less than one-third of the $64 billion spent in 2000. It has moved backwards 60 years. Thomson says, “In the next few years, … we'll see papers and magazines continue to invest in their websites.”

It was interesting to read the range of comments from readers that followed the publication of Thompson’s article. From “shame” to “get over it”.

Newspapers and magazines are not dead by any means, but they certainly are having to

4

www.iRecyclingTimes.com | April 2012

rework their business model. Last month, the largest cartridge remanufacturer in the world celebrated 30 years in the industry ( Yes, our industry is quite young when compared to the printing industry and others). PrintRite’s founding chairman, Arnald Ho told me that the demand for printing on paper is changing. A similar story to magazines and newspapers. Print-Rite has already started investing in using inks on other surfaces, or substrates including textiles.

Many people, when purchasing a new house, decide to remodel it to suit their taste, or to make it feel like home. Sometimes after living in the same home for a long time, it needs a good remodeling job too. But often others see the need for it before we do.

What about your business? Is it time to remodel?

David Gibbons is a director of Recycling Times. He has been a school principal, businessman, marketer, communicator, TV presenter/host and a remanufacturer. For many years he was the executive officer of the Australasian Cartridge Remanufacturers' Association (ACRA).

Recycling Times Magazine

Money From Home

The golden days at Kodak Park Five months have passed since Kodak filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Act. Investors, retirees and current employees are wondering what will be the outcome of this episode in the company’s 132-year history. The bankruptcy court has set a deadline of February 15, 2013 for Kodak to finalize its reorganization plans. Will a new Kodak emerge in little more than a year? Will the company then be more competitive than the one we now know?

As an ex-Kodaker, my hope is that the pride of Rochester, New York will re-organize, regroup and emerge from Chapter 11 leaner, stronger and capable of carrying forward into the future a world-recognized brand that preserved precious memories for amateur, commercial and professional photographers around the globe.

Kodak was the wonderful employer I knew during my tenure there from 1950 to 1955.

At that time, and for many years prior, Kodak employees basked in the comfort of one of the world’s most paternalistic organizations. Kodak Park operated a subsidized cafeteria, a free movie theater, fitness club and credit union.

Kodak offered medical and dental benefits unknown to most workers employed elsewhere.

It was Kodak that enabled me to earn my MSChE degree at the University of Rochester. And it was the Kodak-endowed Strong Memorial Hospital where my son was born.

Why did I ever leave? Perhaps the reason is my future was too well-defined at Kodak. It was all too clear. Yearning for a bigger challenge, I was too impatient to let it unfold at Kodak Park.

Once a pioneer, Kodak taught photography to a world that only knew the process as wet, complex, and wide-format. It was George Eastman’s dream to replace the sensitized collodion-coated glass plates then in use by putting a $1 hand-held camera into the hands of every citizen on Planet Earth. His plan was to continue to sell them supplies—roll film, sensitized paper and a host of related accessories and supplies. That 1880’s plan worked and Kodak prospered.

Over the years, Kodak scientists and engineers continued to innovate, with such ingenious products as the Brownie and Instamatic cameras, high-speed panchromatic films, Ektacolor films and papers. The company also diversified into fine chemical products (Eastman Chemical), as well as drugs and pharmaceuticals (with the acquisition of Sterling Drug in 1988).

As early as 1975, Kodak engineer Steve Sasson developed the world’s first digital camera, but Kodak chose to keep it off the market fearing it would cannibalize booming film sales. Some view this digital dilemma as Kodak’s fatal error, for digital photography ultimately ate up Kodak’s business in film, chemicals and processing.

While Kodak scientists remained focused on the photochemical response of a micronsized silver halide grain, physicists and electrical engineers at Canon, HP and others were discovering ways to increase the pixel resolution and efficiency of an electronic sensor. Analog chemical photography was rapidly being displaced by digital electronic imaging. Over the

past decade, the filmless camera went viral while Kodak’s core business—sensitized films and papers—nosedived.

We all witnessed in horror as Big Yellow crumbled. Kodak shares were down from a peak of $94 in 1997 to an all-time low of 27 cents on March 16, 2012. It’s time to pick up the pieces, focus on Kodak assets, and move on. Its work force in Rochester shrank to less than 7,000.

In the automotive industry, Chrysler and General Motors survived near death experiences with the help of massive government bailouts and exceedingly cooperative bankruptcy courts.

In the financial services industry, banks have been called “too big to fail” and global insurance giant AIG was even called “a national treasure” by its former CEO. Despite the iconic name and century-plus legacy, Kodak is not likely to receive special attention or favor from the U.S. Government.

The current political and economic winds simply don’t blow in their direction. The wizardry of modern technology, pioneered over decades by companies like Kodak, is now taken largely for granted by Americans who receive their inexpensive gadgets from the decks of huge cargo ships arriving from across the sea.

Although its formidable patent portfolio, its venture into battery technology, its experience with the conversion of light into electrical energy, its superior digital printing press (NexPress) technology, and its home photo inkjet printers could prove viable paths to sustainability, the future for Kodak, sadly, is anybody’s guess.

Arthur S. Diamond Art Diamond is a 56-year veteran of the imaging industry. He is President of Diamond Research Corporation, a high technology research and consulting firm he formed in 1968 after research assignments with Eastman Kodak, Times Facsimile, Addressograph-Multigraph and Telautograph Corporation.

DRC serves clients through product formulation and development, private studies, strategic market planning, and expert witness testimony. Diamond is known internationally as an expert on dry toners and imaging media with 15 issued U.S. patents.

April 2012 |

www.iRecyclingTimes.com

5

Recycling Times Magazine

Industry Updates

Print-Rite Gala celebrates 30 year anniversary

P

rint-Rite, the world’s largest cartridge remanufacturer, acknowledged its 30th birthday anniversary in Zhuhai, China with a birthday bash on March 2. Some 700 leaders from industry, government, dealerships, and media gathered together to celebrate the occasion. Founding Chairman Arnald Ho declared, “30 years old has a special meaning in our society, it means we have grown up to be confident and competent.” He attributed the company’s endurance to its “investment in technology and innovation.”

Previously, on January 27, 2012 at a giant LED display in New York City’s Times Square, Mr. Ho proclaimed “For the next 30 years, we will color the world Green with environmentally-friendly products.”

Print-Rite used the theme of “A win-win for trust and the future” at the festive occasion—portrayed by its talented staff in music, dance, song and a fashion parade.

In addition, in a review of Print-Rite’s history and award presentations, there were many activities requiring guests to use their smartphones and social media. Guests scanned the wall murals printed with the inks developed by Print-Rite in order to win a prize.

Some guests took photos and posted them online to Chinese Weibo.

After 30 years of growth and development, Print-Rite has a comprehensive suite of some 4,000 products including toner and ink cartridges, continuous ink supply systems, ribbons, parts and accessories. As Chairman Ho observed, “Print-Rite has registered more than 1,700 patents which make us the leader in the industry.

We target improving both the quality and quantity of our patents.

Recently, we found some design of OEM models infringed Print-Rite’s patents, this proves the success of our IP strategy.”

Referring to Print-Rite’s massive new toner manufacturing plant just out- side of Zhuhai, Mr. Ho noted “Print-Rite invested and set up an advanced and fully-automated toner production site which can achieve five times more of the original product capacity. It becomes the largest toner production site in Main- land China.”

Seine launches Pantum printers at Germany’s CeBIT Fair

A

t the CeBIT Fair in Hanover, Ger many, Chinese consumables maker Zhuhai Seine Technology Co., Ltd. (Seine) released the first “Made in China” laser printers using 100% Seine-owned technology. Running from March 6 to 10, 2012 CeBIT is the world’s largest trade fair showcasing digital IT and telecommunications solutions.

Seine claims Pantum has become an international laser printer brand with a dozen models of monochrome laser and multifunctional printers (MFPs).

Branded “Pantum” the Seine product enters as a direct challenge to existing printers in both performance and price. Most importantly: It certifies China and Chinese technology as a key Player in world imaging markets, just as China has established its position in space travel, medicine, aeronautics, battery technology and other disciplines at the leading edge of science.

Pantum’s metal frame is built to last with an engine life estimated to run up to four times longer than other printers. The paper feed mechanism can reduce paper jams, according to Seine.

Pantum has gained RoHs, CE, ISO9001, ISO14001 and many other certifications, thus guaranteeing the reliability and performance of Pantum products.

Their metal frame construction is built to last and is more durable than most desktop office printers. Engine life is estimated to run up to four times as long as competitive, plastic frame machines thereby reducing printing costs by as much as 30%. Seine is going global with the Pantum printer line by setting up dealer and distributor arrangements in many countries around the world.

“We want to pass a message to our end users and channel business partners throughout the world: after 30 years of unbroken monopoly in the printer industry, a Chinese printer brand, Pantum, has come up with a new choice for you,” said Jackson Wang, CEO of Seine.

About Seine Zhuhai Seine Technology Co., Ltd. is a laser printer and consumables manufacturer with a management team that has served the printer consumables industry for over 10 years. During that period, Seine has gained hundreds of patents at home and abroad. With more than 100,000 square meters of factory space and more than 3,500 staff personnel, Seine is the largest laser toner cartridge manufacturer in China. Seine has continuously been awarded the Most Valuable Enterprise by “China Entrepreneur” magazine and ranked 4th in “Forbes China Top 100 most promising companies” in two consecutive years 2011 and 2012.

6

www.iRecyclingTimes.com | April 2012

Recycling Times Magazine

Industry Updates

Clover expands Canadian facility

C

lover Technologies Group, one of the world's largest printer and copier cartridge remanufacturers has relocated its Canadian operations into larger quarters, and is now three times bigger than before.

Clover announced expansion of its Canadian facility in Oakville, Ontario by relocating the warehouse and distribution center from Bristol Circle to 2340 Winston Park Drive, Oakville. The Company says its new warehouse and distribution center now occupies more than 100,000 square feet of floor space.

The new facility has easy access to three major expressways and is designed for the warehousing and distribution of products that include printer cartridges and component parts, Clover claims.

Ryan Jordan, Clover’s Senior. Vice President in Canada, says, “The tremendous growth we have experienced in the Canadian market was beginning to create capacity challenges for us in our old facility. This new, larger location, being just 2 kilometers away from our former location, provides us with the increased capacity we need along with the same exceptional access to major transportation routes.”

OCP expands R&D & plant facilities

I

nkjet ink maker OCP unveiled activities underway to expand both its research and development operations and production facilities in Lage, Germany. A report filed by Actionable Intelligence on March 7, claims the company is increasing its plant capacity to 4,500 metric tonnes of ink per year. It will also add 750 square meters of warehouse space to its headquarters in Bochum, bringing the total there to 3,000 square meters.

One of the world’s leading suppliers of inkjet ink, OCP has achieved success by combining high quality color and monochrome inks with an unflagging effort to build sales by signing up distributors on every continent.

8

www.iRecyclingTimes.com | April 2012

Recycling Times launches new URL

W

e live in times where the letter “i” is everywhere! iPads, iPhones and iPrint communication technology all focus on the individual. Other meanings also apply, including: information and industry.

Recycling Times Media Corporation is no exception! Recycling Times Media Corporation launched its new URL—www.iRecyclingTimes.com— on March 30, 2012 to better serve its audience by making the connections between information, industry and individual.

The new URL, combining “i” and “RecyclingTimes”, is concise, brief and consistent with business usage.

With the motto of “by the industry, for the industry”, Recycling Times is now using more of the media (including broadcast, social, tablet apps and print) to connect individual with information and the industry by gathering and sharing the latest computer and digital printing industry news. The company strives to connect its audience with industry using the most effective information platform which is available to them— video, Internet or hard copy. It seeks to increase its image and maintain its leadership position in the computer printing industry. Going forward, Recycling Times aims to realize these goals through its new website: www. iRecyclingTimes.com.

According to the company, the new website will merge two previous websites: www.therecycler.com.cn and www.visitremax.com.cn, in order to more effectively reach its traditional domestic market, as well as its emerging international market with timely, objective and trustworthy news.

The new bilingual website has more connections with the social media links, such as, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. The site also supports online reading of its monthly magazine, and its weekly inTouch TV news broadcast. Users can easily find the information they need either through the search bar, the main menu or the website map. More content is available for browsers on the new website, including CIFEX|RemaxAsia, Recycling Times Magazine (Chinese & English versions), inTouch TV news, industry breaking news and the industry map.

To keep in line with the new URL, all Recycling Times staff emails will change to the new format: name@iRecyclingTimes.com. It is expected the new website will be online and fully operational this June.

Recycling Times Magazine

Industry Updates

Metrofuser intros ZeroSet tech for remanufactured HP CP4025/CP4525 fusers

L

aser printer parts manufacturer Metrofuser (Roselle Park, NJ) has introduced ZeroSet technology into their remanufactured HP LaserJet CP4025/CP4525 fusers.

ZeroSet technology is a new remanufacturing solution that will automatically reset the fuser count to zero upon fuser installation.

Before ZeroSet, remanufacturers have been distributing fusers that will either not reset the fuser (CE246A) count or have resorted to selling expensive OEM fusers to customers. Metrofuser’s ZeroSet technology employs a fuseable link solution similar to OEM fuser proprietary technology enabling Metrofusers remanufactured CP4025/CP4525 fusers to properly reset the fuser count to zero upon installation.

“Technicians have always reset page counts themselves, but HP has designed their fusers to reset the fuser page count automatically,” s a i d M a r k M a ku c h , Operations Manager at Metrofuser, “ With ZeroSet technology, techs can install our remanufactured fusers and be confident that the fuser count will automatically reset like it is supposed to.”

“Remanufactured fusers without ZeroSet technology usually will not reset the fuser page count or clear the “REPLACE IMAGE FUSING UNIT” maintenance message,” adds Will DeMuth, COO and Co-President, “Not resetting the maintenance message or fuser count leaves the technician guessing about fuser life and risks them changing a fuser with thousands of pages worth of life left, or worse, over-extending the fuser (and) potentially risking the printer going down. ZeroSet saves the technician time and the customer money.”

About Metrofuser Metrofuser remanufactures and distributes parts for HP and Lexmark laser printers. The company offers a broad array of laser printer products from its Eastern and Western distribution hubs including fusers, maintenance kits, boards, and paper handling assemblies.

InfoTrends reports on the European printing industry

I

nfoTrends released its latest report covering the European printing industry. The study shows investment plans for digital color printing equipment top the list of planned investments.

InfoTrends foresees the web-to-print volume growing dramatically—from 10% to 18% by 2014.

The word “web” in web-to-print refers to the World Wide Web (Internet) and not to a web-fed press. Wikipedia defines web-to-print as follows: “Web-to-print, also known as Web2Print or remote publishing, is a commercial prepress process that bridges the gap between digital content online and commercial print production. This process allows a print house, a client, and possibly a graphic designer to create, edit, and approve computer-based online templates during the prepress phase.”

In cooperation with the Eurographic Press, a group of leading graphic arts trade magazines in Europe, InfoTrends polled 241 European respondents across 14 different countries.

The partnership with Eurographic Press generated 57% of commercial printers in the survey. The next largest group consists of respondents that described themselves as digital printing specialists. Other types of companies—like quick printer/copy shops, transactional/direct mail printers, in-house sites, and marketing companies with printing service— represent a relatively small share. A sign of diversity in the printing industry is the relatively high share of respondents classifying themselves as “Other” printers despite nine types of companies already being listed.

Of the respondents polled, 64% think they must transform or have already transformed from a print service provider (PSP) into a marketing service provider (MSP).

“The printing industry is changing at a rapid pace which is driven by new production technology as well as changes in demand and competition from other media for time and money,” commented Ralf Schlozer, Director of InfoTrends. “As a result, the number of printing companies declined sharply since 2000. Printers will need to adapt to the changing market conditions and take the appropriate steps with their investment plans, strategies, and general opinion of how they look at industry trends.”

For more infor mation, please contact Stephanie Tose at +1.781.616.2103, or send an email to: stephanie_tose@infotrends.com

For more information, visit http://www.metrofuser.com, or call 888-Fusers-1 Ext 107

April 2012 |

www.iRecyclingTimes.com

9

Recycling Times Magazine

Industry Updates

One more choice Everyone wants something more: “Just one more please!”

So the “One PLUS” project has been launched by the Recycling Times Media Corporation (Recycling Times). One More Choice, One More Voice, One More Chance, One More Function will provide more information, benefits and support for people in the printing industry.

The One PLUS project will focus on Recycling Times magazine going hard copy every month from the upcoming May issue.

This is in spite of the trend for publications to stop their hard copy editions in favor of digital.

Recycling Times magazine has successfully published its digital edition every month for two years.

But due to demand from its readers, it will now go hard copy every month. Based on the slogan “By the Industry, For the Industry”, the magazine focuses on providing the latest authoritative news and information from China, Asia, as well as the rest of the world.

The magazine has already published 25 issues

since it commenced publication in April 2010. News, regular columnists, how-to-do’s, legal and industry reports, new products and company profiles are now being downloaded and read digitally by 42,574 every month. In just two years, the magazine has become one of the most popular tools for people to collect industry information, promote brand image and enlarge company influence.

Compared with similar industry products, Recycling Times has many advantages. Firstly, the publishers and editorial team are based in the print consumables capital of the world— Zhuhai, China. It’s very convenient to collect industry information very quickly. Secondly, writers come from across the globe including USA, Europe, UK, Australia, India, China and the Middle East, making it easy for the magazine to reflect the wider industry news and market information. Finally, with editorial offices in China, USA and Australia, a broad global analysis of all markets can be achieved.

So why will Recycling Times change direction by providing a hard copy edition every month at a time when other industry

media are moving digital? Tony Lee, the managing director of Recycling Times says, “The demand for hard copy is very high in our industry. Our research reveals that our readers feel more comfortable when they can relax and read a traditional hard copy magazine. They can carry it anywhere without having to think about power or the internet. In my opinion, one of core magazine functions is create a connection between suppliers and customers.

We promote our hard copy magazine in more than ten shows a year and it is a very effective way to build that connection.”

As a part of the “One PLUS” project, the Recycling Times is now offering a 1+ package with many subscription and advertising choices.

For more information, please contact Anna Liang (Advertising) Anna.Liang@irecyclingtimes.com contact Doris Huang (Editorial) Doris.Huang@irecyclingtimes.com contact Howard Qiu (Marketing) Howard.Qiu@irecyclingtimes.com visit iRecyclingTimes.com

India printer market declined in 4Q 2011

T

he combined serial inkjet and page printer, copier and multifunction product (MFP) market in India totaled 641,274 units in 4Q 2011, a 5.9% decline compared to 4Q 2010, according to Gartner, Inc. “4Q 2011, did not meet expectations when compared to the previous quarter,” said Amrita Choudhury, research analyst at Gartner. “Inkjet

and page products registered mixed sales as organizations controlled purchasing of print devices and looked for services rather than products.”

The report shows HP remained the leader in the Indian printer market with 53% market share. Canon had 21.8% market share, followed

by Epson (9.8%) and Samsung (7.9%).

Vendors

4Q11 shipments

4Q11 market share (%)

4Q10 shipments

4Q10 market share (%)

4Q11-4Q10 growth (%)

HP

340.0

53.0

379.2

55.7

-10.3

Canon

140.1

21.8

167.9

24.7

-16.6

Epson

62.6

9.8

47.2

6.9

32.7

Samsung

50.4

7.9

44.1

6.5

14.3

Others

48.1

7.5

42.7

6.3

12.6

Total

641.2

100.0

681.1

100

-5.9

▲ India printer, copier and MFP unit shipment estimates, 4Q11 (thousands of units)

10

www.iRecyclingTimes.com | April 2012

The inkjet printers market experienced a decline of 24.9 % compared to 4Q 2010. Apart from weak consumer confidence and cautious consumer spending, penetration into the home segment stagnated as the technology matured.

The growing proliferation of electronic media, such as smartphones and tablets, as a means of communication also contributed to the dismal outcome. In this segment, the market leader HP witnessed a shipment decline of 35.6 % compared to 4Q 2010. HP’s share of the market declined from 71 % in 4Q10 to 61 % in 4Q11.

Epson commanded 31 % market share, as its sales grew 16.7 %; Canon saw a decline of 34 % compared to 4Q 2010, but it did not have much effect on its market share, as it shrunk to 8 % from 9 % in 4Q10.

Recycling Times Magazine

Product Release

MSE trumpets high-yield toner cartridges

M

SE, one of the world’s printers.

September 2011. leading cartridge remanuAccording to MSE, the cartridges are All MSE products are subjected to strict f a c t u r e r s , a n n o u n c e d engineered for optimal yield for Managed Print quality control testing protocols, including alternative toner cartridges for HP printers, Service (MPS) applications and for other cost environmental stress testing, accelerated saying they print 60% more pages than the per page sales models. aging testing, shipping simulation, and ISO OEM cartridges.

The HP M4555 Series was first released in 19752 testing. Details of the new cartridges are Van Nuys, California-based MSE introduced May 2011 and the M600 Series was released in shown in the following chart: its MPS Engineered toner Cost per page cartridges, which can be used Products OEM part No. MSE part No. MSE yield OEM yield (US cents) for HP LaserJet Enterprise MSE OEM M4555h, M4555f, M4555fskm CE390X 02-21-45162 40,000 24,000 0.6 1.2 MFP, M602dn, M602n, M602x, MSE brand 02-21-45122 40,000 24,000 0.6 1.2 M603dn, M603n and M603xh Private label brand CE390X

OCP releases pigmented inks for HP, Epson printers

P

igmented inkjet inks for HP 950/951 cartridges have been released in Germany by ink manufacturer OCP. The company says it is the world’s first independent producer to release these inks for the HP Officejet Pro 8100/8600 series printers which use the HP 950/951 cartridges.

Compatible inks for the first Epson photo printer—the Epson L800 series with Continuous Ink Supply System (CISS)—are also available from OCP. The company claims that every 70 ml bottle of the OEM ink comes with a 13-digit code which shall ensure its authenticity. Customers cannot print without first typing in the code.

Printer

HP Officejet Pro 8100/8600 Series

The Epson L800 printer has an integrated ink tank system in order to provide a continuous ink flow during long print jobs.

The inks can be used for the Epson L100, L200 series printers as well, which are only equipped with 4-colors, OCP claims.

More information about the inks is provided in the table 2:

OEM cartridge

Color/type

OCP inks

CN049AE (950) CN050AE (951) CN051AE (951) CN052AE (951)

Black/Pigment Cyan/Pigment Magenta/Pigment Yellow/Pigment

BKP 280 CP 280 MP 280 YP 280

CN045AE (950XL) CN046AE (951XL) CN047AE (951XL) CN048AE (951XL)

Black/Pigment Cyan/Pigment Magenta/Pigment Yellow/Pigment

BKP 280 CP 280 MP 280 YP 280

▲ Table 1

The HP Officejet Pro 8100 and the Officejet Pro 8600 are equipped with a permanent printhead using four individual cartridges.

Both printers can print 20 pages per minute in black and 16 ppm in color with print resolution up to 4800 x 1200dpi.

Details regarding inks for HP 950/951 cartridges are shown in table 1:

12

www.iRecyclingTimes.com | April 2012

Epson Printer

L100 L200 L800

Color

OCP ink

Black

BK 155

Cyan

C 155

Magenta

M 155

Yellow

Y 155

Photo Cyan

CL 156

Photo Magenta

ML 156

▲ Table 2

Recycling Times Magazine

Product Release

Integral fields toner for Kyocera Mita printers

I

ndependent toner manufacturer, Integral GmbH (Kerken, Germany), has introduced a new toner for cartridges TK475/477/479 in Kyocera Mita’s multifunction printer (MFP)

series.

The company claims its new toner offers both forward and reverse cross-mixing compatibility with OEM toners without damaging image quality during the changeover period.

Integral states its toners reduce cartridge waste and have page yields at least equal to the OEM. Integral toners are designed to meet the highest environmental and health standards, and are in full compliance with the regulations of Europe’s REACH program, the company claims. The acronym stands for Registration, Evaluation, Au thorization and Restriction of CHemical substances. The REACH law first took effect on June 1, 2007.

According to Integral, all of its toners provide customers both longand short-term savings compared to OEM products.

Apart from producing toner, the company has recently extended its product line by remanufacturing toner cartridges for Kyocera Mita MFP models FS 6025 MFP, 6030 MFP and Task Alfa 255/305 series.

Integral GmbH has been engaged in the development and manufacture of toners for 45 years. Besides the manufacturing plants in Europe, Integral operates its own R&D to carry out stringent quality control testing on all toners before their release to the market.

For more information, please visit: www.integral-toner.com.

Goat Labs unveils toners for HP printers

N

etherlands-based, printer consumable remanufacturer Goat Labs now offers compatible monochrome toners for HP printers. The company says its ProBlack monochrome toners for HP printers can generate the same print quality as OEM toners.

These toners can be used for HP P1005/P1102/P1505 /P1606 /P1566 / M1120 and M1522 printers.

Goat Labs claims their new toner is a good match with both OEM drums and the OptiPrint II aftermarket drum the offer. The toners and the different drums are subjected to strict quality control testing. Most important features of the new ProBlack toner are high yield and high image density.

Goat Labs offers the following consumables for the various engines: see table 1.

In addition to the above mentioned products, Goat Labs offers chips, blades and other parts and components needed to remanufacture HP’s 35A, 36A, 78A and 85A cartridges.

For more information, contact at + 31 (0)24 3882233 or visit www. goat-labs.com.

Goat Code

Description

Units/pack

210029

Toner, ProBlack, HP P1005/1006/1102/1505/1606/1566/ M1120/1522, 10kg/bag

1

200098

Toner, ProBlack, HP P1005/1006/1102, 90g/bottle

10

200099

Toner, ProBlack, HP P1505/1606/1566/M1120/1522, 120g/bottle

10

100017

OPC Drum, OptiPrint II, HP P1005/1006/1102/1505/1522/1566/ 1606/M1120/1212/1522

5

▲ Table 1

CET intros spare parts for desktop printers

B

eijing’s China Eternal Copiers Technology Co., Ltd. (CET) has released replacement parts for remanufacturing the newer HP and Konica Minolta printers as well as certain Canon and Ricoh machines. These components are designed for use in the HP Color Laser Jet CP3525 printer and the Konica Minolta C451 copier. They include developer, drum unit chips (110V/220V ), drum cleaning blades and OPC drums.

14

www.iRecyclingTimes.com | April 2012

CET also claims they can now provide universal chips for the Canon iRC4080/4580/5180 printer and have developed a Japanese drum-cleaning brush for use in the Ricoh Aficio MP5500/6500/7500, Aficio 1060/1075, and Aficio 2051/2060/2075 machines.

According to CET, their machine parts and cartridge components are designed differently, but are guaranteed to perform as well as the OEM. In this way, they are able to

avoid infringing OEM patents, while ensuring the same performance as the OEM, but at a competitive price.

For more information, please visit www. chinaeternal.com.

Recycling Times Magazine

Product Release

APEX offers chips for HP & Canon color printers

R

eplacement chips for the newer HP 410 and Canon 29 series color printers are now available in China from Apex Microelectronics Co., Ltd. (Zhuhai, Guangdong). First released in January 2012, the APEX chips can be used with HP LaserJet Enterprise 300 color M351/M375n; HP LaserJet Enterprise 400 color M451nw/dn/dw; and HP LaserJet Enterprise 400 color M475dn/ dw printers. These printers operate at speeds up to 21 pages per minute.

Chips for the HP printers are detailed in the following table 1.

Also available are chips for Canon 29 series in 12 full colors, which can be used for the Canon Pro-1 printer. Canon Pro-1 is an A3+ professional photograph printer equipped with 12 color cartridges.

Chips for the Canon Pro-1 printers are detailed in the following table 2.

For more information, please visit www. apexmic.com.

APEX Product Code

OEM Code

Color

ALH-CE410A

CE410A

BK

ALH-CE410X

CE410X

HK

ALH-CE411A

CE411A

C

ALH-CE412A

CE412A

M

ALH-CE413A

CE413A

Y

Description HP Laserjet Enterprise 300 color M351/M375n, HP Laserjet Enterprise 400 color M451nw /dn/dw and HP Laserjet Enterprise 400 color M475dn/dw.

▲ Table 1

APEX Product Code

OEM Code

Color

AJE-PGI129PBK

PGI-29PBK

PBK

AJE-PGI129MBK

PGI-29MBK

MBK

AJE-PGI129DGY

PGI-29DGY

DGY

AJE-PGI129GY

PGI-29GY

GY

AJE-PGI129LGY

PGI-29LGY

LGY

AJE-PGI129C

PGI-29C

C

AJE-PGI129PC

PGI-29PC

PC

AJE-PGI129M

PGI-29M

M

AJE-PGI129PM

PGI-29PM

PM

AJE-PGI129Y

PGI-29Y

Y

AJE-PGI129R

PGI-29R

R

AJE-PGI129CO

PGI-29CO

CO

Description

Canon Pro-1 printer

▲ Table 2

UTec announces alternative Kyocera toner cartridges

C

hinese imaging supplier Union Technology International Co. Ltd. (UTec) has developed compatible toner cartridges for Kyocera color printers. The toner cartridges, which can be used with Kyocera Mita laser printers, incorporate an innovative design. Compatible cartridges are available for Kyocera Mita FS-C5100 and Kyocera Mita FS-C5200dn, respectively.

UTec claims it is one of the few companies UTec code

in the world that can provide high quality cartridges for Kyocera color printers.

Detailed product information is shown in the table below: About UTec Based in Macao, China, Union Technology International Co. Ltd. (UTec) is a marketing and sales company specialized in supplying high quality aftermarket printer consumables and imaging supplies to worldwide markets.

UTec is also the master distributor of Print-Rite imaging products to export markets.

OEM printer

OEM part No.

Kyocera Mita FS-C5100

TK-540/ 542/ 544

TFK135B/136C/137M/138Y TFK302B/ 303C/ 304M/ 305Y

Region America Europe

TFK306B/ 307C/ 308M/ 309Y

Australia

TFK317B/ 318C/ 319M/ 320Y

America

TFK313B/ 314C/ 315M/ 316Y

Kyocera Mita FS-C5200dn

TK-550/ 552/ 554

TFK321B/ 322C/ 323M/ 324Y

Europe Australia

April 2012 |

www.iRecyclingTimes.com

15

Recycling Times Magazine

OEM News

HP combines printer & PC groups

Atman settles patent dispute with Canon

ewlett-Packard announced an organizational realignment to improve performance and drive profitable growth across the entire HP portfolio. As part of this realignment, HP’s Imaging and Printing Group (IPG) and its Personal Systems Group (PSG) are joining forces to create the Printing and Personal Systems Group. The combined entity will be led

by Todd Bradley, who has served as Executive Vice President of PSG since 2005.

Vyomesh Joshi, Executive Vice President of IPG, is retiring after a highly accomplished 31-year career at HP. Under Joshi’s leadership, IPG has grown revenue from $19 billion to $26 billion, and doubled its operating profit to approximately $4 billion.

Combining these two entities will rationalize HP’s go-to-market strategy, branding, supply chain and customer support worldwide.

This will lead to a better customer experience and drive innovation across personal computing and printing. This realignment is expected to provide opportunities for cost savings and accelerate HP’s ability to pursue profitable growth and reinvest in the business.

“This combination will bring together two businesses where HP has established global leadership,” said Whitman. “By providing the best in customer-focused innovation and operational efficiency, we believe we will create a winning scenario for customers, partners and shareholders.”

In addition to combining PSG and IPG, HP also is taking steps to unify and streamline certain key business functions. The Global Accounts Sales organization will join the newly named HP Enterprise Group. This group will be led by David Donatelli and includes Enterprise Servers, Storage, Networking and Technology Services.

The new structure is expected to speed decision making, increase productivity and improve efficiency, while providing a simplified customer experience. A new role for Jan Zadak, Executive Vice President for Global Sales, will be announced at a later date. Zadak will work with Donatelli to ensure an orderly transition.

HP also announced that it will unify its Marketing functions across business units under Marty Homlish, HP’s Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer. This will allow for even more effective brand-building and marketing activities, and will create efficiencies across the business units.

“Ensuring we have the right organizational structure in place is a critical first step in driving improved execution, and increasing effectiveness and efficiency,” added Whitman, “The result will be a faster, more streamlined, performance-driven HP that is customer focused and poised to capitalize on rapidly shifting industry trends.”

he patent infringement dispute between Canon and Atman, Inc. has been settled. On January 23, 2012, Canon filed complaints with the US International Trade Commission requesting that the ITC conduct an investigation under section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930, regarding certain toner cartridges and components. Based in El Segundo, California, Atman, Inc., dba pcRUSH.com, is one of the 34 respondent companies named in Canon’s massive lawsuit (see “First Respondent Folds. . .,” Actionable Intelligence, March 13, 2012).

According to the announcement from Canon, the agreement was reached on March 9, 2012, just 17 days after the complaint was filed. In it, Atman stipulated to a Consent Order from the ITC and Consent Judgment and Permanent Injunction from the Southern District of New York. Atman is forbidden to make, use, sell and offer for sale in the U.S., and import into the U.S., the toner cartridges and their photosensitive (OPC) drums that allegedly infringe on two U.S. patents numbered, 5,903,803 and 6,128,454.

As AI explains, “. . .it seems that at least a few of the defendants find settling the complaint quickly in their best interest,” adding “We will be watching this complaint closely to see if other parties are quick to come to terms with Canon or if third-party supplies manufacturers and resellers will defend themselves from the allegations of infringement.”

Of course, the defense option is a prolonged and costly legal battle on either or both of two issues: unfair monopoly or patent invalidation. The first requires proving market power which is determined by the market share these particular OPC drums represent. The second requires attacking the “novelty” of the convoluted coupling between drive motor and drum. Is it simply a design configuration chosen to lock out aftermarket suppliers, or does it accomplish some end result not obvious to one skilled in the art?

Canon claims it remains committed to pursuing legal enforcement against those who do not respect its intellectual property.

H

16

www.iRecyclingTimes.com | April 2012

T

Recycling Times Magazine

OEM News

OKI resumes production at Thai plant

J

apan’s OKI Data Company resumed manufacturing at its factory in Thailand plant after curtailing operations in October 2011. At that time, plant operations were shut down as a result of flooding caused by severe tropical rainstorms in July. OKI Data Manufacturing (Thailand) is located at the Rojana Industrial Park in Ayutthaya Province, central Thailand.

According to OKI, The second floor of the Thai plant partially resumed operations on January 4, 2012. OKI planned to return to full-scale production by the end of March 2012, however, there has been a return to full-scale production since March 1 thanks to early infrastructure recovery.

Adobe’s “LeanPrint” software conserves ink & toner

O

n March 5, 2012, Adobe launched its revolutionary “LeanPrint” software, a computer service designed to reduce printing costs “by using an innovative method to redo the layout of documents when printing from popular applications and browsers.”

Based upon its laboratory tests, Adobe claims LeanPrint can cut toner usage by up to 40% on print jobs by using techniques like “SuperSaver” and “TonerSaver” operating modes. Adobe also announced a partnership with Toshiba America Business Solutions (TABS) to distribute their services across North America. Consumers can purchase these services through Toshiba’s TABS services, however free trials can be licensed to individuals for 30 days and organizations for 90 days through Adobe.

Adobe techniques and technology are ubiquitous in today’s computerized world. Whether it’s a smartphone or tablet app, a game, a video, a digital magazine, a website, or an online experience, chances are that it was touched by Adobe technology.

LeanPrint may not be a welcome innovation to ink and toner producers and printer OEMs, but considering the relatively high cost of these consumables, it could prove a blessing to end-users worldwide. One question is “How much will the software cost?” A figure of $99 per year is mentioned in the media. If that license fee is confirmed, consumers would have to save more than 1 to 2 toner cartridges every 12 months just to break even.

18

www.iRecyclingTimes.com | April 2012

Xerox adds two UK resellers

A

report by the UK’s Channel Web service, CRN, reveals that Xerox has added two printer and service resellers in the UK to strengthen its market position.

Crawley’s Limpio Office Solutions has become a Xerox authorized reseller and authorized service provider. In Oldham, England office products supplier ZenOffice has become a Xerox concessionaire offering managed print services (MPS).

According to the CRN report, David Sheppard, Founding Partner of Limpio, said: “Both companies look for ways to simplify business processes.”

And Les Kerr, Managing Director of ZenOffice, noted it has supplied office equipment for more than 40 years. “Over the past few years we have seen a sharp rise in demand for MPS, and we believe there is real growth potential for this section of the market,” he added.

Mark Duffelen, Director and General Manager for the UK and Ireland Channels Group at Xerox, declared, “Limpio and ZenOffice are leading office resellers that can now strengthen their position in the SMB market even further with Xerox document management.”

Collins Ink wants to look at Kodak’s books

O

hio ink maker Collins Ink Corp. (Cincinnati, OH) has filed a motion to require that Kodak show their financial books. Collins claims “Kodak isn’t living up to its end of their court-ordered business dealings”, according to an article in the March 12 edition of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

Last October, Collins tried to end a 10-year-old contract with Kodak to supply inkjet inks in view of Kodak’s financial problems and rumors of a possible bankruptcy filing. As a result, Kodak sued Collins and won a U.S. District Court ruling in November 2011 directing Collins to continue supplying inks to Kodak.

Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on January 19, 2012. It is reported that Kodak owed Collins about $1.9 million in unpaid invoices. There are also rumors that Kodak is trying to steer customers from Collins-branded inks to Kodak inks, which breaks their agreement. Collins says its ink takes up 88% of Kodak’s ink sales.

According to Collins, Kodak originally agreed, in the supplies contract, to provide information about inkjet ink users and to allow Collins to conduct an audit of Kodak’s books. However, Kodak is now refusing to divulge any of that information.

Recycling Times Magazine

OEM News

Two new laser printers from Panasonic

P

anasonic released two new multifunction printers in India, claiming these compact devices take up 25% less space. The two printers—MB1500 and MB1520—allow users to merge and print files created with different applications, according to Panasonic.

Panasonic says the MB1500 is a “3-in-one” printer offering print, copy and scan functionalities. The MB1520 adds a fax function, making it a “4-in-one” device. Both incorporate Panasonic’s unique “Quick ID Copy” capability which allows the operator to copy both sides of one or more IDs or business cards, consecutively. Also, scanned documents can then be easily attached to an e-mail for distribution or saved in the computer.

The new models are list priced at $125.95 and $149.95 for the MB 1500 and MB 1520, respectively, with discounts offered by various distributors.

Mr. Toru Hasegawa, Managing Director, Corporate Planning and System Sales Division, at Panasonic India claims Panasonic is confident of achieving 18% market share by year end 2013.

New wide-format & A4 printers from Ricoh

R

icoh Americas Corporation ( West Caldwell, NJ) announced an enhanced wide-format, multifunction printer (MFP) platfor m for the architectural, engineering and construction (AEC) community and commercial printing operations that serve it. They are the Ricoh Aficio MP W5100en which produces 10 pages per minute (ppm) and the MP W7140en, which can output 14 ppm.

Ricoh says these printers are designed for hyper-efficient capturing, saving and sharing of large documents such as, building plans and schematics. With these two wide-format printers, customers can scan large, document like, marked-up construction drawings very easily, Ricoh claims.

Separately, in India, Ricoh released its A4, monochrome SP 1210N, SP 1200SF and SP 1200S printers to strengthen its market position in the sub- continent. According to Ricoh, all three models can print at 22 ppm.

SP 1210N is a Single Function Network Laser Printer. SP1200S functions as a printer, scanner and copier with a standard Automatic Document Feeder (ADF). SP1200SF is a Four Function Device with printing, scanning, copying and faxing capabilities.

In the view of Mr. Kiran Pai, Head, Printer Business, Ricoh India Ltd., “The total market size of the A4, MFP laser printers in India is growing at the rate of more than 10% annually.”

More personal printers from Canon

P

rinter giant Canon Inc. continues to develop printers with the release this month of 7 models for home and small office users. The Canon PIXMA E500 multifunctional printer (MFP) was launched in India for consumers who have large printing jobs and seek to lower print cost.

The new PIXMA printer outputs pages at 5.0 impressions per minute (ipm) for color and 8.6 ipm for black-and-white. Canon says users can also scan the documents and pictures in minutes with 1200x2400 dpi optical scan resolution.

According to Mr. VP Sajeevan, Director, CSP Division, Canon India, “Our latest PIXMA printers incorporate Canon’s technology at lower price points. The new PIXMA E500 is designed to meet our customers’ need to deliver high print quality at affordable prices.

Besides, with (its high) capacity cartridge system the user will not have to replace cartridges frequently.”

Canon also introduced the PIXMA MX892 in America, claiming it provides high quality and productivity. Further, it is designed to help SOHO users easily access ink and substrate materials through utilities such as, Google Cloud Print2. Canon says the new printer offers direct access to a variety of printable templates, including stationery and calendars.

“With users increasingly utilizing the Cloud to store important documents and images, it is imperative to provide an easy way for these materials to be printed easily when they are needed.” said Yuichi Ishizuka, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Imaging Technologies & Communications Group, Canon U.S.A. Another five inkjet printers—the PIXMA MX376, MX436, MX516, MX715 and MX895 were introduced in Australia. Canon says the new models allow users to print directly from USB flash drives and memory cards (MX516, MX715 and MX895). They can also print from PictBridge-compatible cameras (MX436, MX516, MX715 and MX895), so that high quality images are easy to create, according to Canon.

The new printers offer fast document printing on plain paper, producing 9.3 impressions per minute (ipm) in color and 12.5 ipm in black. A 6x4-inch color photo can be delivered in approximately 20 seconds, Canon reports.

“Canon understands that home office users increasingly require the kinds of features and capabilities traditionally found in commercial equipment,” said K. C. Lu, Canon’s Senior Brand Manager for Consumer Print.

April 2012 |

www.iRecyclingTimes.com

19

Recycling Times Magazine

Features

Update 2012: patent & legal review

By Art Diamond, Diamond Research Corporation There are many patent and legal actions in progress at present. This brief summary and update on where things currently stand should prove useful to OEM and aftermarket industry managers and executives. It leads us to a sense of the trends and directions that concludes this review. For a more complete treatment of each of these cases, we suggest you visit www.ActionIntell.com.

Canon vs. Ninestar One year after filing complaints of patent infringement against 20 Respondents and Defendants in June 2010 (see Sidebar I), Canon announced full resolution of all these disputes. The 20 parties agreed to a Consent Order from the International Trade Commission (ITC) and a permanent injunction which will prohibit them from making, using, selling or importing to or offering for sale in the United States, Canon or HP cartridges using a “twisted polygonal prism” coupling that drives the OPC drum in a laser printer.

The two patents cited by Canon are USP 5,903,803 and 6,128,454 bearing the grant dates of May 11, 1999 and October 3, 2000, respectively.

“Bringing down Ninestar,” opines AI “would be no small victory for Canon, as the Chinese third-party supplies firm is arguably one of Canon’s biggest competitors.” But, Ninestar declares that later this year it will bring to market a laser printer engine of its own. Is this is the ultimate solution to the OEM patent wars—major aftermarket players repositioning themselves as original equipment makers with products

▲ Sidebar I

designed and engineered for easy repair and remanufacturing?

▲

Canon slams aftermarket with toner bottle patent After winning lawsuits against 20 aftermarket cartridge suppliers for violating its two, twisted polygonal prism OPC drum coupling patents, Canon is now bashing more than 30 purveyors of a spiral ridged toner bottle it claims infringes another Canon patent, USP 7,647,012. Among the respondents are UniNet and Color Imaging.

According to Actionable Intelligence, after learning from Color Imaging in the discovery process that Taiwanese parts producer, General Plastic, was producing these spiral ridged toner bottles, Canon named GP as an additional defendant.

20

www.iRecyclingTimes.com | April 2012

Recycling Times Magazine

Features ACT vs. Lexmark, a tangled web Advanced Cartridge Technologies (ACT ) President Steven Miller is also the plaintiff in a lawsuit against OEM, Lexmark International. ACT (Tampa, FL) is one of more than 50 companies owned by Mr. Miller, a brilliant inventor, businessman and likely polymath, who has licensed some of his technology to Static Control Components. The two firms have a “contentious history” according to AI, wherein SCC filed suit against Steven Miller and two of his companies in 2005. That complaint was ultimately settled and the lawsuit dismissed in 2007 whereupon SCC licensed three U.S. patents from Miller-owned companies—7,187,874, 7,221,886, and 7,286,774—which apply to universal smart chips for Lexmark cartridges.

ACT’s suit against Lexmark, filed in February 2010, claims Lexmark infringed U.S. patent Nos. 7,113,710, 7,257,356, and 7,643,773. All three patents identify Mr. Miller as the inventor and ACT the assignee. In its complaint, ACT accuses Lexmark of “using its patent portfolio to restrain competition by asserting dubious claims…using false claims of patent protection to improperly compete…improperly restrict consumer rights…asserting patent rights it does not have… and falsely marking its toner cartridges with patents that are expired, invalid, or do not cover the product.”

On December 21, 2011, Lexmark was granted a motion to dismiss part of ACT’s complaint related to false marking of patents. The next chapter in this ongoing saga is a hearing on

Cartridge Corporation of America, another company in which the omnipresent Mr. Miller is active as President, Director and Secretary.

AIC, ICT and PMI vs. 27defendants American Imaging Cartridge (AIC); Innovative Cartridge Technologies; and Platinum Manufacturing International filed suit against 27 companies and individuals (see Sidebar II) on December 14, 2010 alleging infringement of 11 electronic chipset (smart chip) patents. Each of the patents was issued to Inventor Steven Miller who is also a principal in each of the three plaintiff firms named.

7,068,954 7,106,993 7,136,607 7,136,608 7,174,123 7,187,874 7,286,774 7,362,988 7,447,464 7,512,360 7,551,859

March 5, 2012 concerning ACT’s motion for a partial summary judgment finding in the case. This event will be followed by a trial now on the docket for March 26, 2012.

Add to the turbulent legal mix is a dose of intrigue wherein, Mr. Miller’s flamboyant lifestyle—divorces, arrest records, luxury cars, a large boat and association with nefarious characters—has put an enthralling face on the case. According to AI, there is reason to believe the trial will never proceed as Mr. Miller has often settled legal matters in the past. Thus, AI sees “some sort of eleventh-hour settlement in this lawsuit as well,” making March an interesting month “for followers of chipset litigation.”

SCC & ICT co-plaintiffs vs. UniNet Imaging Steven Miller appears as President of ICT and a co-plaintiff with Static Control Components (SCC) in their lawsuit, filed August 25, 2008, against UniNet Imaging, Inc.; UI Supplies, Inc.; and Summit Technologies, LLC. Four smart chip patents were cited, namely, USP 7,088,928, 7,187,874, 7,254,346, and 7,286,774.The first two were issued to SCC and the last two to

22

www.iRecyclingTimes.com | April 2012

NOTES: (a) Because these defendants defaulted, they were ordered to pay damages in varying amounts disclosed in the source article by AI. (b)On December 30, 2011, plaintiff Steven Miller moved for a default judgment and a permanent injunction against these defendants as well as damages at a 20% royalty rate. The status of that motion remains unknown at present.

Source: Actionable Intelligence

▲ Sidebar II

Recycling Times Magazine

Features Lodsys settles patent infringement complaint In 2011, Lodsys, LLC (Marshall, TX) a patent licensing organization, came on the scene when it targeted printer OEMs Brother, Canon, HP, Lexmark, Samsung, Trend Micro and others. Lodsys cited three U.S. patents—7,620,565, 7,222,078, and 5,999,908. Defendants were encouraged when Google filed an ex parte request in August 2011 for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to reexamine the first two of the Lodsys patents named. Lodsys also holds a fourth patent, 7,133,834.

Because the suit against Brother, et al, is scheduled for trial in September 2014 It is possible the USPTO’s reexamination will be completed by that time. If either of the two patents is rejected by the USPTO it would have a significant impact on the case.

In June 2011, ForeSee Results, a web survey and customer analytics firm in Ann Arbor, Michigan, filed suit against Lodsys in an attempt to invalidate all four of Lodsys’s U.S. patents. ForeSee Results and Lodsys reached an omnibus settlement, reported on December 2, 2011. That settlement led to the dismissal of certain claims Lodsys had filed against Trend Micro and Samsung Also on that date, Lodsys filed notice that certain of its claims against Samsung were also settled.

Trading Standards Institute are both investigating consumer complaints that the Lexmark firmware update prevented them from using compatible and/or remanufactured cartridges.

These investigations are ongoing.

Static Control vs. Future Graphics November 2011 marked the end of a long-standing battle between SCC and Future Graphics when they filed a stipulation of dismissal, saying “all matters and things in controversy between the parties to this action have been settled and agreed upon, and therefore all claims and counterclaims should be dismissed.” Chances are slim that the terms of this settlement will be made public.

Innovative Cartridge Technologies (ICT) was third party to the original complaint as it charged that Future sold chips

▲

SCC acts to snuff Lexmark’s firmware scheme Lexmark recently offered end users of their Vizix ink jet platform a “firmware update” that promised to improve the performance of their printers. What consumers soon found out is that this “reman-killing” firmware locks out remanufactured cartridges. Actionable Intelligence later discovered that firmware updates for L exmark laser printers and MFPs, as well as Dell and IBM printers, and MFPs based on Lexmark engines, may also lock out af ter market cartridges.

Unconfirmed at this moment are rumors that this firmware scheme is also

being worked on Lexmark laser printers.

Now, Static Control Components is on the case, once again battling Lexmark, its habitual adversary. If any firm in our industry deserves the title of “defender of the cause of all remanufacturers,” SCC is that organization. Indeed, SCC has taken swift action on several fronts, by • Urging customers to inform Lexmark, IBM and Dell they will not agree to the installation of firmware upgrades for their printers.

• Providing end users with labels to attach to their printers that warn of the risks involved in accepting the firmware • Providing end-users with a form letter that details these risks AI reports that the UK’s Office of Fair Trading and the

April 2012 |

www.iRecyclingTimes.com

23

Recycling Times Magazine

Features

that infringed ICT’s U.S. patents 7,187,874 and 7,286,774, and SCC’s U.S. patents 7,088,928 and 7,254,346.

PowerVip suit dismissed On November 17, 2011, a U.S. District Court order dismissed a lawsuit filed by PowerVip Inc. (Traverse City, MI) and PowerVip SA (Montevideo, Uruguay) against SCC and two Steve Miller-owned companies: Innovative Cartridge Technologies (ICT) and Industrial Engineering and Development (IED). Dismissed also were the defendants’ counterclaims against the two plaintiffs.

Future Graphics was caught up in the litigation when it purchased some of the allegedly infringing carts from PowerVip. None of the settlement details were revealed.

Epson settles with UBAR On May 12, 2011, Seiko Epson Corporation (Nagano, Japan) settled its patent infringement lawsuit against Taiwan’s UBAR, a producer of continuous ink supply systems (CISS) for inkjet printers. UBAR agreed to cease production and sales of the products. They will also pay undisclosed settlement fees to Epson. In addition, UBAR posted a public apology promising not to make, use, sell or import infringing CISS cartridges and other CISS products, and urged others to respect Epson’s intellectual property rights.

Trends and directions This overview of patent and legal issues in the imaging industry reveals a growing trend that threatens increased domination by the original equipment makers (OEMs) and crippling of many domestic and foreign remanufacturers and component suppliers. It demonstrates that OEMs with

24

www.iRecyclingTimes.com | April 2012

their superior resources can use issued patents, however weak might be their claims, to threaten af ter market players, obtain general exclusion orders (GEOs), and in many cases, lead them to quit, submit, or default in court actions.

T h e a f t e r m a r ke t , p o o r l y organized and in many cases more concerned with fierce intramural competition on several levels including, ink, toner, reman cartridges and trade shows, has fought back on a limited scale, with a few notable wins. Of these SCC’s defeat of Lexmark’s Prebate program is outstanding. That plan would have enabled OEMs to capture a substantial share of spent cartridges and keep them from being used by the remanufacturers.

With OEMs now doubling down on patent enforcement, the future outlook is bleak. The urgency for aftermarket suppliers to organize has never been more acute. Canon, in particular, is on the warpath to win back market share lost to the cartridge remanufacturing community. Ms. Christina Bonadio, AI’s Executive Editor, has an excellent commentary on the subject, titled “Canon’s Massive Toner Cartridge Suit: Why Now?” (visit www.action-intell.com/2012) Among possible aftermarket strategies, in order of increasing cost and complexity, are: • Get Back to Basics • Educate the Consumer • Seek Anti-Trust Action • Start Building Printers • Invalidate Cited Patents The first strategy looks no further than the first principles of remanufacturing: the doctrine of permissible repair. Reusing the original drum socket and twisted prism coupling does not violate Canon patents. Building a new mold cartridge with these features, however, is a violation. So, too, is using, selling or re-selling such a cartridge. But wait: Perhaps the Canon campaign will prove beneficial to an industry that has suffered shrinking profits as a result of low-priced new molds that are appearing in European and American markets and poisoning the spent cartridge pool.

Of course, it may also drive upwards the cost of a used OEM cart and make collection of these cores a more demanding

Recycling Times Magazine

Features enterprise. But, in the long run, if Canon is successful in cleaning out the counterfeiters, the reman community might benefit.

The second strategy is discussed in my monthly column “Money From Home,” which you will find elsewhere in this issue. It has been my opinion that some people (Group 1) will always buy new (OEM) cartridges while others, (Group 2), will always seek out a bargain and go for the reman. I suspect that Group 1 accounts for 50% of all sales and that Group 2 comprises 35%. Most of the remaining 15%, I believe, could go either way. They could be convinced to go reman if targeted with a strong educational, advertising and marketing effort stressing the economic, environmental, and energy saving advantages of recharging an existing core. Global organization lies at the heart of this strategy and GRIGA, in my opinion, is the answer to achieving that goal.

The third strategy recalls to mind two similar anti-trust actions where the U.S. government entered the picture and negotiated a consent decree to unlock and stimulate competition. The first action occurred in 1954 when Eastman Kodak had captured about 90% of the Kodachrome and Kodakcolor photofinishing business in America. The decree forced Kodak to train enough independent labs in the complex process to bring their competitors’ market share up to 50%.

The second example took place on July 29, 1975 when Xerox Corporation, among other provisions, was forced to license, upon request, its extensive portfolio of toner formulation and manufacturing patents to U.S. and foreign copier firms and toner producers, many of whom were Japanese. In each of the two actions, the defendant was shown to have market power, a term defined in numerous court actions to mean the ability of a company to manipulate price

26

www.iRecyclingTimes.com | April 2012

by influencing an item’s supply, demand or both. Whether this definition would apply to a company manipulating price by effectively reducing the number of spent cartridges remains for the legal eagles to determine.

The fourth strategy pertains to an aftermarket company and would be an excellent solution except for the amount of capital required and the risks involved.

One approach would be to build a desktop laser printer to emulate the successful HP LaserJet III, based on the SX engine. Introduced in 1990, the device is likely free of any effective patents, but it means turning the design and engineering clock back 22 years. We await Ninestar’s introduction of a laser printer (see Page 20) later this year.

Invalidating cited patents is by far the slowest, most difficult, and expensive strategy, with little assurance of success. However, if there are flawless and incontestable grounds to argue such a case, it could be worth the gamble.

Acknowledgment Unraveling the tangled web of patent infringement actions and lawsuits for the preparation of this article would not have been possible without access to Actionable Intelligence’s (AI’s) website: www.Action-Intell.com. Based outside of Boston, Massachusetts, AI is today’s leading market research firm in the digital imaging space. The AI site provides a comprehensive online library with industry news and analysis along with up-to-theminute coverage of the latest hardware and consumables product introductions. We are most grateful and obligated to Mr. Charles Brewer, President of AI and Ms. Christina Bonadio, AI’s Executive Editor, for making this vast resource available to Recycling Times magazine.

Recycling Times Magazine

Features

The smartphone and tablet opportunity in printing

By Louella Fernandes

In many cases, these are high-value colour pages that generate additional revenue opportunities.

Mobile printing scenarios can be broadly categorised as either public printing/guest printing services or printing across a corporate network. Public/guest printing covers hotspots such as hotels, business centres or airports that offer wi-fi connectivity, web access, and print and copy services.

Mobile workers can discover printers and use universal print drivers or web-based means of submitting print jobs, or they can send them as an email attachment from their mobile devices.

Public print locations should require an authentication code before users can release a print job from a designated printer to ensure that print jobs are not mislaid or stolen by passing employees or members of the public.

Examples of this include EFI’s PrintMe service which is available at more than 3,000 public locations; HP ePrint public print locations such as FedEx and Hilton; and Ricoh’s HotSpot printing which uses PrinterOn’s public printing network.

PrinterOn’s Mobile Printing Solution currently supports more than 7000 PrinterOn print locations worldwide.

Printing from any device to any printer or MFP across a corporate network promotes user mobility across company locations. Printing may be direct from a mobile device or application, through an email attachment to a registered printer or through a web browser, using a public or private cloud. When deployed in the enterprise, it is critical that

▲

A few decades ago, digital communications promised to sound the death knell for printing: it was believed that the final evolution to the paperless office would be just a matter of time.

The paperless office has failed to materialise, with email and the internet actually leading to the creation of more printed documents.

The popularity of smartphones and tablets in the workplace is now, similarly, sparking warnings of a decline in printing, as iPads and other tablets in particular are expected to reduce the need for the printed page.

However, Quocirca believes that this supposed threat to printing actually opens a new landscape of opportunity to printer vendors if they can provide simple, reliable and secure ways to print from mobile devices.

Undeniably, the consumerisaton of IT is affecting the use of smartphones and tablets at work. Today’s dynamic and mobile workforce is relying on personal devices in their professional lives and expect access to corporate systems, including printing, at any time and from anywhere.

Yet even in this era of smartphones and tablets, businesses continue to rely on printing. Some 75 per cent of 125 enterprise respondents to a recent Quocirca survey indicated printing plays an important role in supporting business activities.

There is certainly an appetite for printing from mobile devices, with 55 per cent of respondents indicating that employees would like to be able to print from their mobile devices. About 25 per cent are already investigating mobile print solutions.

Given the diversity of mobile platforms and printer hardware, it is unsurprising that the mobile printing market is fragmented into a wide array of hardware, software and cloudbased services. Not only is the demand for mobile printing an opportunity for more hardware sales – HP, for instance, shipped more than 15 million web-enabled ePrint printers in 2011 – but it also enables vendors to capture pages as they shift from the desktop to the mobile device.

April 2012 |

www.iRecyclingTimes.com

27

Recycling Times Magazine

Features

mobile print solutions are vendor-agnostic, use a private cloud approach, and employ encryption and authentication methods to ensure document security and privacy.

The mobile printing ecosystem is broadly populated by printer/copier manufacturers and ISVs. Hardware manufacturers may typically offer a mobile printing portfolio that comprises hardware, software and services. Printers may be cloud or web-enabled, like HP’s ePrint or Ricoh’s HotSpot range of printers. This allows devices to be registered for these vendors’ respective cloud printing services.

Most of the hardware-centric mobile print solutions are brand-specific, although some do offer multivendor support.

Hardware manufacturers such as Canon, HP, Lexmark, Ricoh and Xerox also offer mobile printing services as part of their managed print services (MPS) portfolio, enabling organisations to manage and track printing across both desktop and mobile environments.

However, Canon’s uniFLOW platform is currently the only integrated print management platform that tracks and reports on both desktop and mobile printing.

ISVs such as EFI, Cortado and PrinterOn all offer vendoragnostic mobile print solutions. Solutions such as EFI’s PrintMe Mobile are particularly suitable for organisations operating a mixed fleet, avoiding the need to implement multiple solutions for each mobile platform and printer or MFP. In many cases, hardware vendors will partner with ISVs to

deliver multi-vendor support where appropriate.

The only mobile OS platform to offer direct printing support is Apple’s AirPrint. This offers wireless printing from iPad, iPhone (3GS or later) or iPod touch (3rd generation or later) devices to AirPrint-enabled devices. These include selected printers from Brother, Canon, Epson, HP and Lexmark.

Google Cloud Print, currently in beta, offers printing from smartphones or tablets with Gmail for mobile, Google Docs for mobile and other supported apps to cloud-enabled printers.

Given the lack of standardisation in mobile printing, organisations are faced with a challenging task when navigating the range of solutions on offer.

Smartphones and tablets may diminish the need for a certain amount of printing, but they are not going to eradicate it. Therefore, organisations should offer employees mobile printing capabilities that enable them to remain productive, while also ensuring mobile printing is tracked and secured the same way as desktop printing.

We believe that mobile printing will become a crucial part of an overall enterprise print strategy as pages gradually shift from the desktop to the mobile device.

Louella Fernandes and Quocirca Quocirca is a leading independent analyst firm, offering strategic consulting, research and analysis into the impact of technology on businesses and consumers.

Louella is a respected and globally recognised analyst who has a wealth of experience and knowledge from 20 years’ association with the printer industry. Her research and consulting experience includes strategic and competitive analysis of the managed print services (MPS) market and analysis of end-user MPS requirements from small businesses to large enterprises.

Louella has authored a range of white papers on the topics of MPS, document workflow and customer communications management (CCM).

28

www.iRecyclingTimes.com | April 2012

Recycling Times Magazine

Profiles

Van Klaveren juggles 3 spheres "cartridge collection, charities and the environment" Van Klaveren CCC B.V. is a Netherlands-based collector of empty cartridges and used mobile phones, with its business operations covering mostly the Netherlands, Belgium and Northern France. Dating back to 1993 (see sidebar), Gerhard Van Klaveren, Founder and current Managing Director, first established the company at age 30. Starting out as a cartridge remanufacturer, he hired four workers for the new firm. Later on, Mr. Van Klaveren moved the company to former Yugoslavian countries and set up three remanufacturing operations there.

Under his direction, all of them fared well. In 1997, he launched Van Klaveren CCC BV as an empty cartridge collector, being the first to start collecting spent cartridges from consumers in the Netherlands.

From remanufacturer to empty cartridge collector Empty cartridges (also known as “cores” and “spent cartridges”) are regarded as raw material, the most important resource in the reman industry. Van Klaveren focused on sourcing cores in a way that is both price and quality efficient.

Therefore, a collection division was set up in 1997. Before actually getting involved in the core collection business, the company carried out a market research investigation. The results showed there was no empty collection company in the Netherlands market at that time. Foreseeing a growing demand for empties in the reman industry, Mr. Van Klaveren set up Van Klaveren CCC b.v., the Cartridge Collection Centre.

Van Klaveren CCC collects about 700 different types of spent cartridges with most of this business conducted in the Netherlands, Belgium and Northern France, as well as in

▲ Gerhard Van Klaveren, Founder and Managing Director

30

www.iRecyclingTimes.com | April 2012

Germany, Scandinavia, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and a few countries in Eastern Europe. After sorting, emptying, and cleaning operations, the empties are sold primarily to Asian buyers.

Mr. Van Klaveren insists people call Van Klaveren CCC a collector, rather than a broker because brokers buy large volumes of sorted cartridges without waste, yet Van Klaveren CCC, as a collector, collects empty cartridges and sometimes virgin and non-virgin ink, toner and toner bottles directly from end users. Sometimes a broker may have difficulty managing his or her margin because of the changeable market price. But a collector, being able to have direct contact with suppliers—the end users—can ask them to reduce collection compensation.

Apart from collecting empty inkjet and toner cartridges, the

Recycling Times Magazine

Profiles

▲ Van Klaveren CCC facilities in the Netherlands

company also collects used phones. Mr. Van Klaveren said, “We already have our own collection bag or box for inkjet and toner cartridges; it’s easy to add used mobile phone collection in our business. The marketing and logistics are the same, but selling mobile phones involves entirely different markets.”

Supplier management and education Van Klaveren CCC’s maintains a large database with over 99,000 supplier records, indicating name, address, e-mail, etc. In the database, suppliers are divided into 6 segments: charitable foundations; schools and clubs; waste management companies; business-to-business organizations; dealers, distributors and retailers; and, third party solutions. These suppliers can request spent cartridge collection service by telephone, fax, and email, or from the websites of 16 threeyear contracted charitable organizations. Once the order

▲

Business, charity and environmental protection Van Klaveren CCC’s collection business is booming. In 2010, it collected roughly 3 million empty cartridges in the Netherlands and Europe. In 2011, the amount climbed to 3.3 million, nearly 300,000 cartridges every month. The growth came after Van Klaveren’s take-over of two Dutch companies— Total Collect and Cartridge Eco Plan—both of them core collectors. Mr. Van Klaveren expects Van Klaveren CCC’s collection business will still have space to grow in 2012.

On the other hand, increased concern over environmental issues in Western Europe is also of growing importance.

Business is but one factor that shapes a company; another is its social accountability. Van Klaveren CCC is concerned not only with business operations, but also with charity. It has succeeded in combining these two domains by partnering with 16 charitable organizations, including the World Wildlife Fund. These organizations collect empty cartridges and used phones for Van Klaveren. In return, the company makes generous donations. This symbiotic relationship is good for both partners.

Mr. Van Klaveren avers, “It is good for those charitable organizations that want to make an environmental statement encouraging people to recycle empty cartridges and used phones. They get a donation from us by offering empties they collect from their supporters. More supporters mean more income.” He also observed that doing something good in this world, not only for the environment, but also for people in need, makes him feel good. Thus, he will continue to do so.

Van Klaveren holds that by re-using empty cartridges for the

production of reman cartridges, the environmental waste is decreased considerably. Some substances in cartridges might be harmful if released to the environment. By cleaning up cartridges in a safe and sensible way and making them suitable for recycling, any environmental damage can be reduced substantially. In addition, remanufacturing saves all the labor that went into constructing the original cartridge.

In recent years, some original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) also conduct empty collection programs in many places, but instead of remanufacturing, they use empties to recycle the plastic and metal parts, often converting the plastic into construction materials. Recycling is better than sending spent cartridges to a landfill, but does not conserve the valuable materials and labor as efficiently as remanufacturing.

Some people regard cartridge recycling as environmentally unfriendly and wasteful. Mr. Van Klaveren said OEMs are destroying the cartridges which can be reused by his company ’s reman customers. He points out that remanufacturing is a better solution compared with destroying. Also, Van Klaveren’s core collection ends up helping charitable organizations. He added, “Newmade cartridges are not environmentally friendly, while remanufacturing is friendlier. Collecting and using empty cartridges is the world’s best option for environmental protection.”

▲ Van Klaveren CCC facilities in the Netherlands April 2012 |

www.iRecyclingTimes.com

31

Recycling Times Magazine

Profiles is made, Van Klaveren will inform its forwarder, DHL, to pick up supplier’s empties. Normally, the process will be accomplished within 24 hours. Afterwards, suppliers receive an agreed upon compensation in return.

Van Klaveren would like to educate people that empty cartridges are not worthless. Rather, they can be used again as raw material for the production of reman cartridges.

Keenly aware of the importance of letting people know the advantages of empty collection, Van Klaveren has been conducting educational programs. For example, they send supplier education packages together with each collection box. In it, there might be a collection poster, telling people what is Okay to collect and what is not Okay. Also, the company distributes special education kits to primary schools, with different contents for teachers and students. Their website: www.eeko.com also serves as an education platform.

It has a section specially designed for school education, separately for parents, kids and teachers.

Trademark registration and ISO certification With business continuing to grow and develop, Van Klaveren has become more standardized. The company has registered a European trademark for Eeko, a collection brand.

Customers can go to the website: www.eeko.com to order collection service. Mr. Van Klaveren says, “To be sure, we have registered the collection brand widely in Europe and it is and will be ours now and in the future. The picture and the words are 100% owned and registered by Van Klaveren CCC.” Van Klaveren was awarded ISO certification in 2010. When asked the reason, Mr. Van Klaveren replied, “The achievements we’ve made and the people we’ve trained required a change in the internal structure of our company to ensure our products are uniformly consistent in quality. The ISO certification gave us the structure to accomplish this. Further, the environmental issue is something of great concern to us. The ISO certification is like an acknowledgment of our efficient operating structure.”

▲ Working staff

32

www.iRecyclingTimes.com | April 2012

▲ Warehouse

Leadership Van Klaveren is a shining example of a successful spent cartridge collection business. Behind the success, stands the skilled leadership of Mr. Gerhard Van Klaveren. We can all learn from his example. It shows us those characteristics that are required for a good leader in a cartridge collection company.

Being the Managing Director of a core collection company for more than a decade, Mr. Van Klaveren is no doubt an expert on both the industry and its products. But he never stops learning. Last year, he finished a Strategic Leadership Program in Nyenrode Business University. He views toner and inkjet cartridges as a global industry and maintains close contact with CEOs from larger remanufacturers all over the world—Canada, China, Eastern Europe, the UK, and the USA—in order to get the right perspective, direction and strategy for his company. By keeping his company structured properly, he has led Van Klaveren to win many awards and ISO certification.

In conclusion, profound product and industry knowledge, endless desire to learn, global perspective and a broad industry-related, communication network, all helped to shape a successful leader in this field.

Future perspective Van Klaveren does business all over the World. Its team is well educated and speaks many languages, including, Dutch, English, German, French, Spanish, Marok and Turkish.

For the future, Van Klaveren will continue to grow globally in collecting empty inkjet and toner cartridges and more importantly, it will ensure that the operation started in France just six months ago will also run successfully. In addition, China is in his sights as an important growth market for Van Klaveren’s bright future.

Recycling Times Magazine

Legal Issues

Brief introduction on the damages of false patent marking

By Helen Duan & Liu Jiliu Patent marking refers to the marking of words in the products or their packages which verify these products have been granted patent protection, like “China Patent”, and “Patented China Invention”, etc.

The main reason of applying patent marking to products is to publicize that the products are under patent laws protection and no one can copy, manufacture or duplicate the products without authorization. Products with patent marking can be recognized as evidence that a third person or party should have been informed of the rights enjoyed by the products under patent protection.

On the other hand, inappropriate use of patent marking refers to the patent marking on the products, which have no patent, or the granted patent has expired. Products have no patent can be further divided into two situations.

In the first situation, the products have not applied or have not been granted a patent, or in the second situation, the patent marking of the products is conducted without the authorization from patentee.

For many customers, patented products usually are recognized as high quality ones. So to some extent, patent marking can make the products more attractive to consumers, and can have positive advertising effects. Consequently, some vendors driven by such commercial benefits, may apply “Patented Products” or similar words to their products or

▲

product packages, even the products have not been granted the rights to do so. All these behaviors can be recognized as inappropriate use of patent marking.

According to the Article 17 of f the Patent Law of the People’s Republic of China, “An inventor or designer shall have the right to state in the patent documents that he or she is the inventor or designer. The patentee shall have the right to have his or her patent mark displayed on the patented products or the package of such products.”

This means that China has recognized patent marking as one of the lawful rights enjoyed by the patentee to mark his or her products or the packages of these products with corresponding patent marks. In accordance with corresponding regulations about patent number marking of the PRC, the patent numbers granted by State Intellectual Property Office are composed with several elements. For instance, patent number ZL 93 2 24663X, the two letters “ZL” are the abbreviation of “Zhuan Li”, the pinyin of Chinese characters which means patent. The first two digits “93” represent the patent was applied in 1993. The third digit “2” represents the categories of the patent. The rest digits are the series number and computer check digits. Except for the aforesaid content, the patentee can also add other literal and graphical contents, but these contents and their presentation must not be misleading to the public. The Article 84 of Implementing Regulation of Patent Law defined the acts of “marking a non-patent products, and/or their packages, with patent marks, continuing to affix patent marking on the products, and/or their packages, whose patent rights have been declared invalid or terminated, or affixing patent marking to products and/or their packages without the authorization of the patentee”, are all inappropriate use of patent marking, and the sales of the aforesaid products are counterfeiting activities of patent.

All of these activities can be recognized as counterfeiting or forging that has serious legal consequences. Article 63 of Patent Law of PRC regulated “A person who counterfeits the April 2012 |

www.iRecyclingTimes.com

33

Recycling Times Magazine

Legal Issues patent of another person shall, besides bearing civil liabilities in accordance with law, be ordered by the administration department for patent-related work to put it right, and the department shall publicize the matter, confiscate the involving unlawful gains and impose on the counterfeiter a fine of not more than four times the unlawful gain; if there are no unlawful gains, a fine of not more than RMB 200,000 may be imposed; and if a crime is constituted, criminal responsibility shall be pursued in accordance with law.” According to Article 216 of the Criminal Law of PRC, “whoever forges another person’s patent shall, if the circumstances are serious, be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention, and concurrently or independently be sentenced to a fine.”

Since products from a large number of domestic companies are sold both at home and abroad, the patent marking is an inevitable issue as well. Supposed the products have been granted patent by the corresponding country and have no other patent infringement issue, what are the differences of law and regulation in other countries? The following are some regulations on patent marking in other countries or regions.

34

www.iRecyclingTimes.com | April 2012

infringement after being notified, and the patentee can only claim for damages of the infringement behaviors after the notification. In other words, if there is no patent marking on the patented products, the starting date of the infringement can only be traced to the day when the infringer received the notification of infringement. Otherwise, the starting date is counted from the date when the actual infringement begins.

There could be a long interval between the beginning of and discovering of the infringement, which means a significant difference for the amount of damages.

2. Japan Patent marking is one of the patentee’s obligations.

In accordance with the relevant regulations of patent marking from Japanese Patent Law, Utility Model Patent Law and Design Patent Law, the patentee or the authorized users of the patent must put the stipulated patent marking on the products or their packages. In other words, patent marking is a dependent obligation for patentee who manufactures or sells patented products in Japan.

3. Germany There is no patent marking related law or regulation, yet there are a number of methods to calculate the damages of patent infringement.

Unlike the UK or the USA, there are no law and regulation in Germany for patent marking, but it does not mean that one can exempt from paying damages for the patent infringement actions. According to the article 139(2) of the German Patent Law, “Any person who undertakes such action intentionally or negligently shall be required to compensate the infringed party for the resulting damage. The profit made by the

▲

1. U. S. A. Patent marking is regarded as one of the patentee’s obligations in the US which means the breaching of such obligations shall limit the damage claim of the patentee.

According to the article 287 (35 U.S.C. 287) (a) of Patent Laws of the US, “Patentees, and persons making, offering for sale, or selling within the United States any patented article for or under them, or importing any patented article into the United States, may give notice to the public that the same is patented, either by fixing thereon the word “patent” or the abbreviation “pat.”, together with the number of the patent, or when, from the character of the article, this cannot be done, by fixing to it, or to the package wherein one or more of them is contained, a label containing a like notice”.

In the lawsuit involving Forest Group in 2009, the plaintiff, the Forest Group, sold the non-patented product labeling a patent number to its clients. Originally, the plaintiff charged defendant, its client, for breaching the contract to purchase alternatives from other places. However, the plaintiff then faced the counterclaim of false marking. Thereafter, U.S. Federal Court has dealt with about 200 lawsuits related to false marking 80% of which were charging for the false marking of expired patent number. Prior to the Forest Group case, the total fine amount for false marking is up to USD 500, but in the cases after that, each of false marking articles can be

fined up to USD 500, which means an significant increase of the total fine. If the patentee holds a negative manner about the obligation, and does not mark the patent number on the products or the packages, patentee will not be granted any damages in any infringement cases, unless there are evidence to prove that the infringer has continued the acts of

Recycling Times Magazine

Legal Issues infringing party as a result of the infringement may also be taken into consideration when assessing damages. The claim for damages may also be calculated based on the amount which the infringing party would have had to pay as an appropriate fee if the permission to use the invention had been obtained.” If the infringement is no fault of the counter party, the patentee may still request the recovery of the benefits from the counter party by claiming unjustified enrichment.

4, Chinese Taiwan Similar to USA, patent marking is regarded as one of the patentee’s obligations and breaching of such obligations could mean a limitation of damage from infringement.

According to Article 79 of Patent Law of Chinese Taiwan, the patentee should put the patent number on the products or their packages and should require the authorized licensee or franchisee to do so. Otherwise the patentee shall not be entitled of any damage claim, unless the infringer has known, or there is evidence to prove, that the involving products have been protected as patented products.

In China, the patent marking is regarded as a right of patentee, while in US, Japan and Chinese Taiwan, is regarded

as an obligation of patentee. You may have the question that which is a more reasonable one? For China, the quitclaim of one’s lawful right should not bring other losses except the loss of this right itself In accordance with the principle of law. In other words, the damages claimed by the patentee should be limited within the extent of what the patentee has quitclaimed. To be more specific in patent cases, which part is the “mine field” of the involving patent, while which part can be circumvented, is a problem that can be clarified with the help of a patent consulting report from related experts and patent attorneys. Before that, the balance of a patent case is inclined to the patentee party. As for the countries or regions that regarded the patent marking as obligations, like USA, Japan, and Chinese Taiwan, etc, their related regulations may bring some troubles for the patentees and companies to confirm the validity of their patent marking, but these patent markings do play an important role in the collecting of evidences as well as the whole legal procedures, for instance the Forest Group case mentioned above. What’s more, the fine of false marking of patent number in the US is anything but a trifle one, and consequently companies should pay special attention to the validity of their patent marking issue in order to avoid potential risks.

Exhibition Timetable April 18 – 19, 2012

June 6 – 8, 2012

July 20 – 21, 2012

ITEX

Business Inform Expo

World Expo

Las Vegas, USA

Moscow, Russia

Las Vegas, USA

www.itexshow.com

www.sforp.ru

www.rechargermag.com

May 30 – Jun 1, 2012

July 4 – 6, 2012

Sep 13-15, 2012

ReciclaMais Expo

ISOT

RechargExpo

Sao Paulo, Brazil

Tokyo, Japan

Jakarta, Indonesia

www.reciclamais.com

www.reedexpo.co.jp/isot

www.rechargexpo.com

October 15 - 17, 2012

Oct 14-18, 2012

CIFEX

GITEX

Zhuhai, China www.iRecyclingTimes.com

36

www.iRecyclingTimes.com | April 2012

Organized by

Dubai www.gitex.com

Recycling Times Magazine

Market Data

Monthly briefing on new printers February 2012 Printer manufacturers have been quite active recently, with four new factories either under construction or in the planning stage for Brother (Philippines), Canon, HP, and Xerox (Thailand). With respect to the focus of these new plants, the Brother and HP facilities will be dedicated to inkjet printers, Canon to laser printers, and Xerox to multi-functional machines.

New product releases have also created an active scene.

February witnessed a rise in the number of new printers offered, with 257 devices sprinkled among 9 regions and 16 countries (including the same models launched in different lands).

Region

Country

North America

United states

West Europe

Britain, France, Germany, Italy

East Europe

Russia

Asia pacific (except Japan)

China, Singapore, India

Oceania

Australia

South America

Brazil, Argentina

Africa

South Africa

Middle east

United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia

Japan

Japan

Newly-added models and total new designs still demonstrate a great change compared to January. Our analysis shows the following features in the technical attributes and regional distribution of the new OEM printers: Country

New devices Qty

Country

New devices Qty

US

35

India

16

UK

15

Australia

10

France

19

Brazil

5

Germany

27

Argentina

4

Italy

27

South Africa

18

Russia

8

UAE

8

China

15

Saudi Arabia

6

Japan

37

Singapore 7

▲ Table 2: Distribution of new models in various regions

Developed countries take the lead in scale In terms of the distribution of regional markets, during February, the newly launched models in the US, UK, France, Italy and Japan outnumbered other countries (See Table 2).

Among these machines, the new Lexmark S315, S415 and S515 color inkjet printers were first promoted in sophisticated markets like the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy and Australia.

This was also true of 8 new Lexmark dot-matrix printers.

▲

▲ Table1: OEM new product release regions and countries within observation

HP

Canon

Epson

Samsung

Brother

Lexmark

Total (Country)

US UK France Germany Italy Russia China Singapore India Australia Brazil Argentina South Africa UAE Saudi Arabia

26 0 0 0 0 0 33 4 1 7 0 0 0 1 0

6 4 4 4 4 4 28 8 10 0 0 16 8 4 0

4 0 0 0 7 39 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 1 9 14 7 10 0 0 1 0 1 2 2 4 0

2 0 0 1 0 0 40 8 18 49 0 0 11 13 11

19 17 16 19 17 46 3 5 0 12 10 20 8 0 37

57 22 29 38 35 99 104 29 30 68 11 38 29 22 48

Japan

27

23

34

0

22

3

109

99

123

88

51

175

232

768

Total (Brand)

▲ Table 3: Distribution of new products by brands and countries (Dec 2011-Feb 2012) April 2012 |

www.iRecyclingTimes.com

37

Recycling Times Magazine

Market Data The 4 additions to Canon’s PIXMA series were also released in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and South Africa.

OEMs concentrate in certain regions Among all new product releases through out the period from December 2011 through February 2012, Japan wins with 109 new models, followed by China and Russia. In general, emerging markets remain quite active, but Brazil and India gave a poor showing. A total of 99 new HP printers were introduced, but mainly in the US, China and Japan (see Table 3). New machines in these three countries accounted for 86.9% of all HP new printers while the amount in Singapore, India, Australia and Arab League witnessed a gradual decrease.

US UK France Germany Italy Russia China Singapore India Australia Brazil Argentina South Africa UAE Saudi Arabia Japan Total (Brand)

and European countries was equally balanced.

In regard to the new product launch performance in February 2012, HP stands out in Japan with its new models.

Along with 3 laser printers in the LaserJet Enterprise 600 color series launched in the US, HP also promoted 13 wide-format printers of the Designjet series in Japan. On the other hand, Canon remained focused on emerging markets like China and India, but was also quite active in mature markets such as the UK and US. Lexmark appears more concentrated upon South America and South Africa, releasing fewer new models in the Asia-Pacific region. (see Table 4)

▲

Still, no new printers were released in other countries.

Canon’s new entries were focused on China and Japan, showing the company’s continuing confidence in the Oriental market. Since 2010, Canon’s “starting year” in China’s commercial printing business, Canon China has been dedicated to the Chinese printer market structure by bringing in more business printers and multifunctional printers (MFPs).

In June 2011, Canon printers accounted for a 39% market share, 11% more than HP. As for the models, Canon is more active in PIXMA photo inkjet printers than laser products.

Interestingly, in the wide-format market Canon and HP are more active in new product releases than their other OEM competitors.

For Epson, Russia and Japan constitute its new product concentration, accounting for 83% of the total printers introduced. In addition to these two countries, plus the US, Italy and Singapore, other regions saw no new models released, making Epson the most focused OEM among those

offering new products.

Epson remains focused on inkjet printers, but with a regional difference because all new printers from Epson released in Japan are uniquely targeted (without repetition) at specific countries. This is especially the case with models like color inkjet printers, inkjet MFPs, and other specialized machines.

For Samsung, 51 new models launched throughout the period place it in last position among OEMs in the “new product chart.” However, Samsung’s new products covered a wide regional distribution including France, Germany, Italy and Russia. Interestingly, Samsung did not launch any new printers in its traditionally important markets like China and the US. Brother, following Lexmark, released 175 new models, mainly in Australia, China and Japan. Lexmark, the leader, recently released 232 printers in 14 countries except India and the United Arab Emirates. Among the 14 countries, Russia and Saudi Arabia were Brother’s singular market focus. In the meantime, the number of new printers released in American

HP

Canon

Epson

Samsung

Brother

Lexmark

5 0 0 0 0 0 6 1 1 4 0 0 0 0 0 20 37

6 4 4 4 4 4 8 3 8 0 0 0 8 4 0 11 68

4 0 0 0 1 2 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 16

0 0 1 5 7 2 0 0 1 0 0 0 2 4 0 0 22

2 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 6 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 10

18 11 14 17 15 0 1 0 0 5 5 4 8 0 6 0 104

▲ Table 4:Distribution of new products by brands and countries (Feb 2012)

38

www.iRecyclingTimes.com | April 2012

Total (Country) 35 15 19 27 27 8 15 7 16 10 5 4 18 8 6 37 257

Recycling Times Magazine

Market Data 3. Lexmark wins in quantity of new samples In this month, Lexmark ranks first in total quantity of new models with a 40.5% share, followed by Canon and HP, while Brother, with its focus on label printers, ranked in last position in the quantity of new products introduced. Interestingly, Lexmark released quite a large number of dot-matrix printers during this period. At the same time, Lexmark debuted 4 of its OfficeEdge series of MFPs, which are designed as workhorse machines for small workgroups within the enterprise and small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs).

5. Market’s choice: inkjet or laser?

Among all printers launched in February 2012, HP, Canon and Lexmark introduced only inkjet rather than inkjet and laser printers. According to a Lyra report, the inkjet market is now recovering from the global economic recession with a great momentum, which is predicted to last until 2015.

Developed regions like Europe and America represent saturated inkjet markets, especially among SMB, SOHO and home users. However, emerging markets like Latin America are now undergoing a rapid growth, which are forecast to last until 2015. As a matter of fact, according to our study, the number of new inkjet devices slightly outnumbered laser devices by 15 models (see Chart 7).

▲ Chart 5: Brands of newly-added models (Feb 2012)

4. Color continues to lead the market Among the 768 models the page output of color printers, at 65.2%, is larger than that of the monochrome devices, 34.8% (see Chart 6), That is, color printers continue to lead the market. This is true because color printers generate a larger profit for the OEMs. According to the IDC research report, color printing takes up 47% of the weekly printing volume among color printer users. The top of the list goes to large companies, with a 50% share of total printer volume.

▲ Chart 7: Functions of new models (Dec 2011-Feb 2012)

Compared with laser printers, inkjet printers usually have a lower per page cost and also a better performance in text or photo printing. OEMs such as, HP and Lexmark, are still quite active in launching new devices for workgroup printing.

Despite the fact that some analysts foresee lasers gradually taking more market share from inkjet, it’s still hard to tell which is the consumers’ first choice.

6. MFPs keep the lead Among all newly-released models, MFPs kept their lead, showing a trend of integrated operation in the office environment. Based on sample analysis, among all printers released by 6 OEMs in 16 countries, MFPs accounted for 60.3% and single-function printers 30%. The remaining 9.7% were wide-format and other multi-function digital printing devices(see chart 8) .

▲ Chart 6: Color output of new printers

40

www.iRecyclingTimes.com | April 2012

7. Printing speed and monthly printing capacity of new OEM printers Comparing printing speed and print capacity, we can work out the consumer group for each printer. Machine speed

Recycling Times Magazine

Market Data

▲ Chart 8: MFPs outnumbered single function printers

▲ Chart 10: Speed of new color printers (ppm)

analysis for 613 models of monochrome printers shows a focus between 11 and 30 pages per minute (ppm), namely, 55.3% of the total. The peak occurs between 11 ppm and 20 ppm, while new printers producing over 50 ppm represented the least number of introductions (see chart 9). That leads us to conclude today’s monochrome printers are mainly targeted to SMB, SOHO and home users.

▲ Chart 11: Monthly printing capacity of new printers

▲ Chart 9: Speed of new monochrome printers (ppm)

A statistical analysis of 449 new machines for their color print speed shows that printers producing at or below 10 ppm take up 43% of the total, the largest slice of the pie, owing to the contribution of photo inkjet printers. Color printers between 11 and 50 ppm are relatively evenly distributed in terms of the number introduced (see chart 10).

Monthly capacity reflects the largest volume a printer can produce within a 30-day period. Using an analysis based on this feature, we can figure out the user type of each printer.

A statistical analysis of 342 models reveals that 33.6% have a capacity of over 100,000 pages per month, making them suitable for large or professional users. Another 12.9% output 50,000 to 100,000 pages per month; 17.5% were capable of producing about 10,000 to 50,000 pages and 36% were at or below 10,000 pages (see chart 11).

Market research for new OEM printers Since December 2011, Recycling Times has been monitoring new product release information of the world’s major OEMs. We are focused on such data as: new printer design, printer price, type, speed, monthly volume, footprint, supplies, and other performance and consumable details. We plan to continue our comprehensive statistical analysis so as to get a full grasp of the development trend of OEM printers in the printer supplies industry and thus enable planning and forecasting for future development.

As explained earlier, the current scope encompasses new product releases of 6 leading brands, that is, Brother, Canon, Epson, Hewlett-Packard, Lexmark, and Samsung, in 16 countries. Recycling Times will gradually expand its scope to include emerging OEMs and other world regions.

Want more information about the new OEM printers, or some of the detailed statistical data published in our report? If so, please dial +86.756.395.9284, or send an e-mail request to: jeven.zhang@iRecyclingTimes.com, or visit www. iRecyclingTimes.com April 2012 |

www.iRecyclingTimes.com

41

Recycling Times Magazine

Tech Zone

Remanufacturing the HP color LaserJet Enterprise CP5225 series black and color toner cartridges

By Mike Josiah and the Technical Staff at Uninet Imaging First released in January 2011, the 5225 series of color laser printers are based on a 20 ppm black and color Wide format (A3) 600 x 600 Dpi engine, 3600dpi with RET. (35ppm for the CP 4520 and 42ppm for the CP4525).

The 5525 cartridges are an all-in-one type cartridge that consists of the toner supply, drum, and waste chamber. Like a few of the other newer high volume HP Color laser printers, the cartridges in this series do not fit into a pull out tray. All four cartridges are stacked in line front to back and fit directly into the printer. Note also that the drum faces up not down

when placed in the printer. We already discussed the theory of the printing theory of HP CP5225 in the March issue and this issue will discuss the remanufactruing process.

These cartridges are basically a rectangular shaped cartridge that comes with a toner seal and a snap-on drum cover across the bottom to protect the drum. This cover also separates the developer roller from the drum so that when the cartridge is stored, the developer roller does not become flattened. See Figure 1. These printers also have a separate waste bottle to collect the waste toner from the ITB (Image transfer belt) These cartridges also use chips that’s need to be replaced each cycle.

The printers based on the CP5225 engine are the: HP Color LaserJet CP 5225n HP Color LaserJet CP 5225dn The cartridges used in these machines are the: CE740A (Black)

7,000 pages

$208.82 List*

CE741A (Cyan)

7,300 pages

$367.82 List*

CE743A (Magenta)

7,300 pages

$367.82 List*

CE742A ( Yellow)

7,300 pages

$367.82 List*

CE745A (Toner collection unit) ▲ Figure1

Supplies required • CP5525 dedicated color toner • New replacement chip • New long life CP5525 drum • New wiper blade • New toner feed roller [optional] • New PCR [optional] • New doctor blade [optional] • Drum cover

$18.00 List*

* Pricing current as of May 2011

• Lint free cloths • Conductive grease Required tools • Toner approved vacuum.

• A small screw driver (common sStyle) • A Phillips head screwdriver • Needle nose pliers

The pins in these cartridges are stepped. In other words the outside is thicker than the inside. To remove the pins, you must carefully shave the plastic away from the pins. The procedure is described below.

42

www.iRecyclingTimes.com | April 2012

Recycling Times Magazine

Remove the spring from the label side of the cartridge.

On the waste chamber, remove the two screws from the drum gear end cap. Press in on the tab as shown and remove the end cap. There is no need to remove the opposite side end cap. step >

1

3

step >

step >

Remove the pins with flush cutting wire cutters. The smaller pin fits on the contact side of the cartridge, the long pin on the label or gear side.

6

7

Remove the drum.

4

8

On the gear side, press in on the plastic locking mechanism.

To remove the wiper blade, the amber film assembly needs to be removed. Slide a razor knife under the plastic mounting bar, and remove the assembly. step >

step >

step >

Remove the PCR by lifting up on the black and white PCR locking arms.

Remove the PCR, the arms will stay in place.

With a razor knife, carefully shave the plastic from the heads of the hinge pins on both sides of the cartridge.

2

step >

step >

step >

Tech Zone

5

On the opposite side lift up on the black lever. Lift the two halves apart.

9

April 2012 |

www.iRecyclingTimes.com

43

Recycling Times Magazine

Tech Zone

step >

Install the drum. Short hub side onto the long drum ground/axle pin. Make sure there is conductive grease on the drum ground/axle pin.

17

step >

Install the new wiper blade and 2 screws. If you removed the WB glue, seal the back edge of the blade with the silicone now.

13

10

19

Place the waste chamber aside.

The amber film assembly is held in place with double sided tape. If this is not sticking or a new wiper blade is being used, replace the tape. Replace the film assembly. step >

step >

Remove the two screws from the wiper blade. Slide the razor knife along the back edge of the blade to release it from the glue. Remove the Wiper blade.

step >

step >

Install the end cap and two screws.

Place a small amount of White Lithium grease on the drum hub.

18

14

44

20

On the supply chamber, remove the two screws from the gear side end

cap.

12

www.iRecyclingTimes.com | April 2012

step >

step >

Clean the felt seals on each end of the wiper blade. If the WB glue has toner on it, clean it off with alcohol and a foam swab. If it does not become sticky again, it needs to be removed and a good silicone caulk used to seal the blade off. GE 100% Silicone and Phenoseal are two good brands for this.

step >

step >

Clean the PCR with your preferred cleaner and install in the cartridge with the PCR holders. Make sure you lock the locking arms in place.

15

16

Place conductive grease on the black holder side of the shaft.

step >

step >

Clean out all the waste toner from the chamber. Try not to get any toner on the WB seal if possible.

11

21

Pry up on the small tab and remove the end cap.

Recycling Times Magazine

22

Remove the seal take-up gear. See Figure 48

step >

step >

Tech Zone

25

Remove the triple developer roller drive gear(s).

step >

26

On the gear side inner end cap, remove the two screws and end cap.

27

Remove the developer roller.

31

Remove single screw and contact side inner end cap.

Remove the two screws from the doctor blade and start to lift the blade up. There is glue on either rend of the blade. As you lift the blade up, slice the glue away from the blade with the razor knife.

29

step >

On the contact side, remove the screw, pry up on the small tab and remove the end cap. Watch out for the developer gear assembly. This is a three piece gear set that may come with the end cap.

24

28

step >

step >

step >

Remove the felt washers from both sides of the feed roller.

There is a gray felt washer on the gear side and a white felt washer on the contact side.

step >

step >

Remove all the gears as shown except for the mixing blade gear and the sealing strip gear. The mixing blade gear is attached to the mixing blade inside the hopper and is very difficult to re-attach properly.

23

step >

step >

On the right side of the chamber lift up the felt developer roller seal. Lift it from the front side and lay it over the back.

30

32

Pry out the rubber feed roller bushing from the right side.

April 2012 |

www.iRecyclingTimes.com

45

Recycling Times Magazine

33

Remove the feed roller.

Press the developer roller felt seal back in place. Make sure it fits under the retaining blade. If the glue is not sticking, place a very small bead of 100% adhesive silicon to lock it in place. DO NOT get the silicon on the top of the felt! This felt has a tendency to curve when re-installed. The picture shown is NOT the correct way. Make sure the felt is straight or it will leak. step >

step >

Tech Zone

step >

46

Gap the blade to 1.6mm. You may have to modify your gapping gauge to fit. Install the doctor blade and two screws. Make sure the sticky seals on either rend of the blade seal correctly. If the material is no longer sticky clean it with alcohol or replace it with a small amount of silicon.

Install the feed roller and rubber bushing. Keyed end to the gear side.

40

35

www.iRecyclingTimes.com | April 2012

Install the feed roller felt washers.

Place the gray seal to the gear side, white to the contact side.

38

Clean the contacts and replace the conductive grease on the inner contact end cap. Install the inner contact end cap and screw. step >

step >

When a seal is available, you will first need to remove the auger drive gear and remove the auger so that you have access to the seal area. Install the seal onto the seal rails. Pull the release tape off 1� at a time and press the seal in place as you go. Install the auger and auger drive gear. Make sure the drive gear is positioned as shown.

37

step >

step >

Clean out the remaining toner and fill with the correct color of dedicated CP5225 toner.

34

step >

step >

Remove the seal port and slide the seal pull tab through the slot.

Install the seal port.

36

39

41

Recycling Times Magazine

Tech Zone

step >

44

Place the two halves together contact side first. On the gear side, press the lever in place. On the contact side snap the lock up into the end cap. step >

step >

step >

step >

46

Install the gears in the order shown. If you installed a seal, slide the seal end through the take up gear and wrap the loose tail tight on the roller.

step >

49

Install the spring.

50

Remove and replace the chip.

Install the inner gear end cap and two screws.

Place the triple gear on the developer roller shaft and fit into the spring assembly on the end cap. Install the end cap and install the two screws.

45

Install the two pins. Large pin to the label or gear side of the cartridge.

step >

43

48

Install the outer gear end cap and screws.

47

If the new replacement chip is loose in the slot. Close off the top edges with small amounts of hot glue. step >

step >

step >

Install the cleaned developer roller.

(DO not use any chemicals to clean this. A lint free cloth works fine. Place the keyed end to the gear side and conductive grease on the contact side.

42

51

April 2012 |

www.iRecyclingTimes.com

47

Recycling Times Magazine

Tech Zone Press the down arrow until CALIBRATION/CLEANING appears on the display Press OK Press the down arrow until FULL CALIBRATE or QUICK CALIBRATE appears on the display Press OK Use the Full if the colors are misaligned or blurry; Use the Quick if the colors are wrong, too dark or light, or if highlights are missing.

step >

Repetitive defect chart:

52

Install the drum cover on to the cartridge.

Taking test prints Print quality troubleshooting pages Press the Home button Open the following menu’s: Administration; Troubleshooting; Print quality pages Press the down arrow until “Print PQ troubleshooting pages” appears on the display Press OK Diagnostics page Press the home button Open the following menu’s: Administration; Troubleshooting; Print quality pages Press the down arrow until “Diagnostic page” appears on the display Press OK Calibrate now: Sometimes the only way to fix print quality issues is to force a calibration.

Press the Home button Press the down arrow until DEVICE MAINTENANCE appears on the display Press OK

Primary charge roller

35.0mm

Developer roller sleeve

42.0mm

Primary transfer roller

50.0mm

Secondary transfer roller

60.0mm

OPC drum

94.0mm

Fuser sleeve

76.0mm

Fuser pressure roller

79.0mm

Print density settings: There are actually multiple sub settings that can be set under density. As you can see, these settings can get a little intense and complicated.

Highlights: Highlights are colors that are nearly white. To darken highlight colors, increase the Highlights setting. This adjustment does not affect midtone or shadow colors.

Midtones: Midtones are colors that are halfway between a white and solid density. To darken midtone colors, increase the midtone setting. This adjustment does not affect highlight or shadow colors.

Shadows: Shadows are colors that are nearly a solid density. To darken shadow colors, increase the shadows setting. This adjustment does not affect highlight or midtone colors.

Mike Josiah Mike Josiah is the East Coast Technical Director at Uninet Imaging. A global distributor of toner, OPC drums, wiper blades and other supplies. An industry veteran since 1987, Mike is a member of ASTM committee F.05, the STMC Technician Certification Committee as well as an STMC trainer.

He regularly contributes articles and teaches seminars at association meetings and trade shows.

48

www.iRecyclingTimes.com | April 2012