A ferocious battle has broken out over a patent infringement case brought by Electronics For Imaging Inc (EFI), the Foster City, California printing technology company. It has alleged that Harlequin Ltd, a UK-based producer of raster image processing (RIP) software, has infringed its patents in a case that has been working its way through a US District Court in California for the past ten months. Harlequin strongly denies the allegation and claims that EFI has not complied with the court’s disclosure requirements or numerous requests by its attorneys for information.
A court-ordered mediation session is scheduled for August 30. But Harlequin now claims that EFI is putting pressure on it in advance of the hearing by writing to its OEMs and asking them to license EFI’s patents. Harlequin says that EFI is claiming victory in a similar patent infringement case against PhotoScript Group, a now bankrupt UK RIP distributor but Harlequin says that PhotScript was unable to defend the action because of bankruptcy proceedings.
Harlequin itself was put into the hands of receivers last month (CI No 3,699) and was taken over by Global Graphics SA, a Pompey, France-based supplier of digital printing systems.
