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BROTHER GETS INJUNCTIONS AGAINST GERMAN COPYCAT INK CARTRIDGES
NAGOYA, Sep 2008 Brother Industries Ltd.said Wednesday that two German office products manufacturers have been ordered by a court to stop selling ink cartridges the Japanese firm says infringe on its intellectual property rightsThe Dusseldorf District Court issued preliminary injunctions against Pelikan VmbH and German Hardcopy AG, each of which might appeal. Some of the companies’ ink cartridges are compatible with Brother multifunction printers and similar in shape to Brother products designed for easy replacement.

Brother sent warning letters to four firms in June. Two of them stopped selling the ink cartridges at issue, but Pelikan and German Hardcopy continued to sell theirs. Consequently, Brother took them to court in July.The Japanese firm sells mainly multifunction printers in Germany, its largest overseas market after the U.S., with German sales reaching about 40 billion yen in fiscal 2007, or nearly 10 per cent of its overall group sales. The firm’s ink cartridges are produced primarily in China, selling millions of units a year in Germany.