[White Ink Printing on DTG Printers] Kornit Patent
Go to Page...
DTG Category Sponsor
Discuss the various aspects of direct to garment printing. DTG printers include Brother, T-Jet, Flexi-Jet, DTG Kiosk, Kornit, Mimaki, Tex-Jet and others! Discuss and learn about this up and coming printing technology.
DTG Category Sponsor
[White Ink Printing on DTG Printers] Kornit Patent
Got my letter today from Howrey LLP regarding selling our t-shirt printers. Does anyone have any insight on how to beat this? My interpretation is that their Method claim does not include a precoat phase only printing direct to black shirt. Also, I believe they are going after the small people so they can build their validation by getting us by license from them then go after people like Brother and Scott F. Please respond we need to all stick together so they do not become a Sawgrass.
What printer do you have? I am wondering who all they will send a letter too. I think that one thing I seen on their patent that may make a difference also is, that their patent says that it has one printhead that prints white, and one or more printheads that print color. All of the epson based machines only have one printhead, that print both white an color, on their small format machines. I wonder if this makes a difference. I think the ones that Kornit are really wanting to go after, is brother, since they have decided to come out with a more commercial type white ink printer. I think that Kornit may see them as a threat. It just seems this way to me, as Kornit had not made any attempt until brother decided to come out with a white ink printer. Of course this is only my opinion
__________________
Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest. ~~~Mark Twain BobbieLee
Okay this is the way I have been told is is going to happen. We are a small company with a great solution so if Kornit gets enough of us to pay for license and royalyty fees then they will have a leg to stand on when confronting Brother. However, they are attacking dealers and distributors not manufactureers so everyone who is selling any machine that prints white ink will be affected. We sell an Epson based printer with one head and we still received the poison pen letter from EFI's legal department. In case you don't know, EFI and Kornit are now partners so the pockets are deep!
Okay this is the way I have been told is is going to happen. We are a small company with a great solution so if Kornit gets enough of us to pay for license and royalyty fees then they will have a leg to stand on when confronting Brother. However, they are attacking dealers and distributors not manufactureers so everyone who is selling any machine that prints white ink will be affected. We sell an Epson based printer with one head and we still received the poison pen letter from EFI's legal department. In case you don't know, EFI and Kornit are now partners so the pockets are deep!
Thats exactly what theyre doing. I also think theyre fishing to see what type of response they get and who they can scare . We were advised to ignore it. I know were not the only ones who got it, what have others done? AnaJet? SWF MESA? Sawgrass?
They are definitely going to be challenged by someone / company on their patent. If the patent holds up after review, then they have the right to charge a reasonable license. I just hope if that is the case, their definition of reasonable is close to the rest of our's.
They are definitely going to be challenged by someone / company on their patent. If the patent holds up after review, then they have the right to charge a reasonable license. I just hope if that is the case, their definition of reasonable is close to the rest of our's.
Mark
Yeah, $200,000 per machine......
__________________
BelQuette Inc, 877.202.0886 & Screener's Choice, 330-345-5877
Mod1 Direct to Garment Printer, Made in the USA www.belquette.com
I just read the patent. My best estimation of what it entails is, printing white ink, THEN drying the white ink, then printing color ink on the DRIED white ink (with no white bleed showing). If this is the case, then I think they would be hard pressed to stop anyone that has a dtg printer that does not dry the ink before the next pass. As far as I know, there isn't a machine that does this. I don't know how the Kornit works, but I assume it does it, but other than that, I don't know of any that dry it. One method was hot air, so circulating air could be argued it's not drying the ink but just drying it enough where it's not a pool of ink. I believe this can be arguable as well. Some instances say dry, some instances say cure. The patent office apparently didn't know the difference. This is also the next LOGICAL step in printing digitally to a shirt. For this reason alone (the next logical step), it can be argued the patent never should have been awarded.
Either way, I can see why they are going after people selling machines and not the manufacturers.
The invention claimed is:
1. A method for color printing on a dark textile piece comprising the steps of: digitally printing, by mean of an inkjet printing head, an opaque white ink layer directly onto a dark textile piece; and digitally printing a colored image on said white ink layer, said digitally printing said white ink layer is performed such that said white ink layer substantially covers, without exceeding, the designed area of said colored image, and further such that said white ink layer and said colored image are substantially coextensive.
2. The method according to claim 1, wherein said step of digitally printing said opaque white ink layer further comprises fixing said layer.
3. The method according to claim 1, further comprising curing said white ink layer before the step of digitally printing said colored image.
4. The method according to claim 3, wherein said step of digitally printing said colored image includes digitally printing a white ink layer by means of an inkjet printing head directly onto the textile piece, and fixing said layer.
5. An apparatus for printing on a dark textile piece, the apparatus comprising: a flat bed machine with a printing table for holding the dark textile piece; at least one white inkjet printing head and at least one color inkjet printing head disposed above the printing table and arranged for printing directly on the dark textile piece; and a controller for causing said at least one white inkjet printing head to digitally print an opaque white ink layer directly on the dark textile piece on the printing table during a first pass, or series of passes, and for causing said at least one color inkjet printing head to digitally print a colored image on top of the white ink layer on the textile piece on the printing table during a second pass, or series of passes, such that said white ink layer substantially covers, without exceeding, the designed area of said colored image, and further such that said white ink layer and said colored image are substantially coextensive.
6. The apparatus according to claim 5, further comprising a curing unit associated with said printing table, wherein said controller is also arranged to activate the curing unit to fix at least the white ink layer.
7. The apparatus according to claim 5, further comprising an array of inkjet printing heads including a plurality of color printing heads and at least one or more white inkjet printing head.
Be interesting if they are granted the patent considering the concept of printing the underbase has been in the screen printing business for years. Digitally printing textile is not new. To get a patent to digitally print the underbase it seems like a long shot. To patent an ink formulation, or a unique way of drying the white ink I can see. I'm not a lawyer (thank God) but I do have 3 design patents, and have undergone the process.
WTF
How about a patent on producing cotton from a field full of soil and manure then harvesting said cotton threading and weaving cutting sewing, printing a white layer that exceeds the designed area, and then eat a spoon full of original manuer?.
Now I know I won't be doing business with kornit "EVER", because those who cann't sell enforce copyright infringment, and a silly one if I might say, because I bet prior art is available, and if this patent stands my question is if I print a green layer then a white and then color is the patent void? what about printing several layers of almost opaque white? MY God, and the patent is so sloppy, because kornit filled a patent for something their machine does not do: cure white before color.... arghhhh.
SCO vs IBM anyone? I would love to see these Ah0l3$$$$ fight Brother or roland or any one who has white ink and a inkjet head, I would guess the laters have deeper pockets. my .1 cent ( let's not waste)
I think you will find this patent is already granted.
To infringe on a patent, you dont have to infringe on every claim, you only have to infringe on a single claim and you still infringe.
Claim 1 is the main claim and if you are going to argue with this its going to be on the definition of "an opaque white ink layer directly onto a dark textile piece;", does a pretreament process include or exclude this.
I am sure the lawyers will make a lot of money arguing about this point.
Kornit Patent 
