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Zeetoner News:

We are working on populating our web site with products and information about us and our industry. The idea of a web site has been in the backs of our minds for a long while and after throwing away a large sum of money to build a web site we have finally decided to start from ground zero and do it ourselves the way we would like to see it done. We will improve the site over time , however since we are doing it ourselves,  it does take time, and we would welcome any requests from users who may want to see other things or different things on our site.

We are building our site for you, the customer, and sometimes we could miss something or an idea from the customer’s point of view.

Web sites are dynamic and are ever changing and we look only to improve where and when possible. We sincerely hope that this site will be both informative and interesting and we welcome and suggestions or additions.

Need more information - Please e-mail us

The Zeetoner Team

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May 3rd 2018

Public Notification

For Immediate Release

Montreal, May 3rd 2018 - Canon and 9010-8077 Quebec Inc, which does business under the name Zeetoner, have resolved their pending lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York regarding Zeetoner’s alleged infringement of Canon’s U.S. Patent Nos. 9,746,826; 9,836,021; 9,841,727; 9,841,728; 9,857,765; 9,869,960; and 9,874,846, with Zeetoner agreeing to a Consent Judgment and Permanent Injunction that prohibits it from making, using, selling, and offering for sale in the U.S. and from importing into the U.S., the toner cartridges that Canon accused of infringement.

May 2018

Canon Finalizes with Zeetoner

Zeetoner does not have the resources to fight against the likes of Canon and as such we are signing off on the patent infringements. While we are not patent specialists nor are we involved in the fabrication of the cartridges, we cannot afford to fight the fight.

Unfortunately we will need to stop selling some items from Ninestar.

 So - As per Canon's request

We will publish the Notification

Zeetoner

April 2018

Zeetoner Canon Court Case Update

Canon has closed cases with several of the 50 defendants in the ITC ruling. Most of the smaller sellers have quickly agreed to sign off on the patent infringement case while the larger sellers are now in a battle against Canon.

From our understanding, some defendants are claiming that Canon is abusing patent rights in order to shut out cartridges that already have their own patents.

In our case we were brought into this mess due to a direct ship from Ninestar to a customer in NY for a total of 6 cartridges. Ninestar claims on their web site that they sell "the latest high-quality, non-infringing digital imaging supplies" and they also claim that "in 2014, patented dongle gear for Canon was developed to ensure stability and lower printing costs." While we are totally confused as to how the very same patented dongle is the basis for the Canon patents, we have somehow and inadvertently been caught in a pretty horrible position.

We contacted Ninestar and their attorney and they have refused to back us up in this case even though the product was drop shipped from Ninestar directly to the customer. Unlike Ninestar, Aster Graphics claim that they will indemnify all clients buying from them. They also claim that OEM manufacturers have gone after 3rd party manufacturers in court and somehow the 3rd party manufacturers/importers still manage. Who knows if the claims will be backed up with reality. One thing for sure is that Ninestar does NOT indemnify all clients as far as we know. Maybe things will change, only time will tell.

As a small business we can only hope that our supplier stands behind their products 100%. Sadly this is not always the case and in our case we have been discarded. While we still believe that Ninestar manufactures a great product, we also believe that they should stand up more in cases similar to ours. It is possible that the Canon patents may not stand up in the courts against Ninestar's patents. We are not patent specialists and we need to leave the battlefield and stay out of this fight between giants.

Is it possible that Canon will simply find a way to cross license the products or will they go for a full shutdown in the US market? Only time will tell.

Zeetoner   

February 2018

Zeetoner is part of a huge court case in the United States for patent issues with Canon.

Canon USA has issued complaints to the United States International Trade Commission against 50 legal entities for patent violations. Unfortunately 9010-8077 QC Inc. doing business as Zeetoner was listed in that complaint in the United States.

While the complaint does not request any damages, this issue was accompanied by lawsuits in courts all over the United States that do include requests for trial by Jury without specific damages to be paid at the outset. However; damages and court costs will eventually be part of the lawsuits.

To the best of our understanding, Canon claims that the dongle (the part that somehow attaches the toner cartridges to the printer) is patented by Canon in certain cartridges. The cartridges that allegedly violate the patents by using this dongle (some HP and some Canon cartridges), are being manufactured, mainly in China. We are not patent specialists or engineers of any kind and we can only hope that these issues can be resolved quickly by all sides concerned.

We realize that all, or most of the Respondents in the patent cases are HUGE companies (apart from Zeetoner), it looks like there will be long and difficult battles to be fought in the courts.

Zeetoner was unwittingly dragged into this battle of industry behemoths and based on the fact that we do not manufacture the cartridges, nor do we import the cartridges that are part of the patent infringement, we are at the mercy of Canon and their lawyers.

Let us be crystal clear. We do not condone any type of counterfeiting of cartridges.

We also do believe that it is important to sell products from companies who know what they are doing and who manufacture products that are legal to sell. We do not want to sell products that may violate patents.

At this time we do not know how this issue of patents will stand up in court. We do believe that this court case is going to bring up the price of toner cartridges for the consumer over the long term and possibly create a shortage in the market. If Canon is able to win this patent issue we are quite sure that they will be singing all the way to the bank.

Canon seems to be extremely aggressive at this time and prices will go up in the marketplace no matter what is the result.

What we do hope is that the courts and Canon et all will not drag this on forever causing uncertainty and huge issues in the consumables market. We will have to wait and see. For now the ITC must make a ruling and the patents will be argued in the courts.

More to come

The Zeetoner Team