Inkjet Wholesale News aims to provide updates on the latest significant occurrences in the field of printing. Whether it’s the launch of a new technology or volatility of market prices, we’ll be here to give you the lowdown on what happened, when it happened, and what it means!
World’s First In – Office Paper Recycling System, The PaperLab Launched
Earlier this month, nearly 200 countries met in Paris, France for the COP 21 UN Climate Conference and agreed on a comprehensive deal to save our planet from manmade climate disaster. The deal was essentially a ‘go green’ initiative where more than 190 countries agreed to cut carbon emissions. The deal is supposed to come into force from 2020 onwards.
The aforementioned deal is considered to be historic in the big scheme of things because it may help mankind save the planet by reducing fossil fuel consumption. What this deal shows is that climate control and environmental concerns are at the forefront of our species right now. While countries are making overarching deals on a global scale, the same kind of development is taking place on a smaller scale i.e. at the enterprise level.
Numerous corporations and Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have started pushing towards making their operations more and more environment friendly. Businesses have incorporated green initiatives into their work culture by buying energy efficient devices and even saving paper. Well, Epson, the printer Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) has gotten in on the act too.
Epson has recently developed and launched the world’s first ever in – office paper recycling system. It has dubbed the revolutionary recycling system as The PaperLab. The PaperLab is simplicity itself. You simply put waste paper in it and take out brand new sheet of paper about three minutes later.
The PaperLab has the potential to change the way businesses deal with their environment footprints. Business will no longer need to send their waste paper to an off – site paper recycling plant. In fact, according to Epson, The PaperLab is much more efficient than that option. Moreover, having a recycling machine inside the office can also be beneficial for those businesses that deal with a lot of sensitive documents. These businesses can now dispose their sensitive documents in – house.
The key aspect of The PaperLab, however, is not what it can do but how well it can do it. As mentioned, The PaperLab takes no more than three minutes to process waste paper and churn out brand new A4 sheets of paper. The speed of this machine is incredible because it can produce around 14 A4 sheets of paper in 60 seconds. Translate that into the whole workday of eight hours and you get an unbelievable 6,720 sheets of paper.
The PaperLab will not only help the environmental concerns of a business and its document security concerns but it will also support its bottom line. Imagine how much money a business can save only because it has to buy fewer sheets of paper and spend less on waste disposal.
The saving potential of The PaperLab becomes even more impressive when you consider the fact that it can produce A3 sheets of paper as well. Additionally, the thickness and density of the papers being produced are modifiable to suit specific requirements and needs. How does The PaperLab work? It works like any off – site recycling system. It breaks down waste papers into their constituent fibres and then builds them again into brand new sheets of paper.
Apart from being the world’s first ever in – office paper recycling system, The PaperLab also happens to be the first paper production system in the world to use a dry process. Typically, paper production involves a lot of water. The fact that The PaperLab uses a dry process doesn’t mean that it doesn’t need water. It just means that it requires less water.
Supposedly, this machine only requires a certain level of humidity to work its magic. However, for that, it doesn’t need to be connected to a constant water supply. It would be safe to presume that there is a water tank inside the machine that needs to be kept filled. There is a lot of good that will come from The PaperLab from Epson but only so long as the water required isn’t priced like Epson ink.
123inkt.nl Wins Patent Case against HP in Netherlands
It isn’t often that we talk about patent case victories with respect to the aftermarket. In fact, it isn’t often that anyone ever connects patent infringement lawsuit victories with aftermarket manufacturers and suppliers. But, there is always scope for change in this world and 123inkt.nl is leading that hope.
123inkt.nl is an online supplier of printing consumables based in the Netherlands. The company and its Managing Director (MD), Gerben Kreuning, have been under pressure from different OEMs over the last one year in the form of patent infringement cases. As opposed to settling or buckling to the OEM might, Kreuning and 123inkt.nl have been fighting and, indeed, winning those patent infringement cases.
The latest example was the patent infringement case between 123inkt.nl and HP. HP filed the case against 123inkt.nl claiming that certain cartridges sold by the online supplier carried a chip that infringed on one of its patents. HP wanted the court to band 123inkt.nl from selling those cartridges.
However, the move to file the case backfired for HP when the Dutch supplier argued that the patent in question should not have been granted in the first place by the European Patent Office. 123inkt.nl also claimed that the patent was being abused by HP to maintain its monopoly in the market.
The District Court of the Hague agreed with the Dutch supplier’s argument and stated that the patent was invalid because there was no novel aspect of the technology. The court also ruled that 123inkt.nl was free to continue selling the cartridges in question.
This isn’t the first time that Kreuning’s online company has beaten HP over a patent infringement case. A similar patent infringement case was filed by HP against 123inkt.nl at the end of last year. That case was settled between the OEM and the online supplier. It should be counted as a victory for the Dutch supplier because it could continue to sell the cartridges that HP was trying to block.
Similarly, 123inkt.nl beat Samsung over a similar case that was heard by the same court in the first quarter of this year.
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