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!
Epson SureColor P-Series Expanded to Include 3 New Designer Edition Configurations
The SureColor series is one of the most important to Epson. Under the tag “SureColor”, multiple sub series intended for multiple industries and multiple types of consumers are included. It is, in fact, a series that the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) focuses heavily on. If you’ve been reading Office Hacks’ News Updates, then it is impossible that you haven’t come across the Epson SureColor series before in its various avatars.
A casual look through our archives shows us that Epson has been updating its SureColor series regularly in the last one year. All of it goes back to April last year when Epson actually launched the new SureColor series. After that, in September, the Epson SureColor F-Series Dye Sublimation Printers were introduced. That was followed by the launch of four new SureColor models in October, the entire SureColor SC-S series in January, 2016, and the Epson SureColor P10000 in April, 2016.
Well, the trend has now continued with the release of three new Designer Edition configurations to expand the entire Epson SureColor P-Series of printers. The new large format printers are intended for creative professionals. The specific Epson SureColor P-Series configurations released are the SureColor P800, the SureColor P6000, and the SureColor P8000. According to the OEM, these three new additions to the Epson SureColor P-Series models are designed specifically for high end designers. The focus of the design, as per the company, is ease of use.
From this perspective, the highlight of these printers is that they all come with EFI Fiery eXpress RIP Software which is, itself, developed on the Adobe PostScript 3. What the EFI Fiery eXpress RIP Software does is that it makes it quicker and easier for designers to print their work accurately. As a matter of fact, this technology gives users five different ways of printing their work.
The foremost of these is the Hot Folder where a compatible file can be dropped for the printer to automatically process on its current settings. The Virtual Printer is another method that allows work to be printed directly from the designing software programme. Unidriver does the same job as he Virtual Printer with the exception that it provides additional editing features. Work can also be printed locally through the eXpress RIP which supports various file formats such as JPEG, TIFF, PSD, PDF, and EPS amongst others. Dragging and Dropping into an existing job list is also possible, of course.
Each of these new Epson SureColor P-Series printers is highly advanced and comes with lots of features. Their sizes, however, differ with the P800 being the smallest and the P8000 the largest. The P800 allows 17 inch borderless printing, the P6000 allows 24 inch borderless printing, and the P8000 allows 44 inch borderless printing. All the new Epson SureColor P-Series models also boast of 8 colour UltraChrome HD inks which are specifically created to deliver maximum quality and performance levels. Similarly, all these new Epson SureColor P-Series printer models offer all the modern connectivity features including Ethernet, USB, and Wi-Fi Direct. Each of these new Epson SureColor P-Series printer models can handle a wide variety of media. These include fine art papers, matte papers, glossy papers, and a number of proofing and comping types of papers.
The new Epson SureColor P-Series P800 printer is based around the OEM’s proprietary print head printing technology called Epson MicroPiezo AMC. The P800 comes standard with a sheet feeder that is configured to have paper entry and exit in the front. However, at the same time, a paper roll holder is available as an option. The other two new Epson SureColor P-Series printer models, on the other hand, are built around Epson’s PrecisionCore TFP print head technology. Furthermore, these advanced Epson SureColor P-Series models can handle almost every type of media in either of the two commonly used formats i.e. rolls and cut sheets. These printers can even take on 1.5mm thick poster boards.
Memjet HP Settlement: Undisclosed Terms save Both Technologies
The long running battle between Memjet and HP has finally come to a close through a global Memjet HP settlement. The two technology developers have come to an agreement that will result in all legal actions between them to be dismissed. The news came out through an announcement by Memjet but the interesting part is that HP has completely refused to comment on it.
The Memjet HP agreement will also result in cross licensing between the two companies with respect to their technologies. The technologies involved in patent infringement cases between the two firms were single pass inkjet head technology for Memjet and PageWide inkjet technology for HP. When news about these lawsuits broke out, they gave rise to worries amongst industry watchers and stakeholders that one or the other technology will either have to be removed from the market or changed drastically.
However, the cross licensing Memjet HP settlement has rendered those fears redundant. Cross licensing, here, means that both parties have allowed each other to use their respective technologies even if they are technically related. The exact conditions and details of the Memjet HP settlement are still undisclosed, which means that nobody knows whether any money exchanged hands as a part of the agreement.
The patent battle between Memjet and HP had been going on for nearly one year before this settlement. It was in July last year that the former had sued the latter for patent infringement involving its PageWide “Waterfall” printing technology (eight separate patents) which HP was using as its PageWide inkjet printing technology. Memjet’s case specifically cited certain offending printer series from HP which were the PageWide XL series, the T-Series Commercial Presses, and the OfficeJet Pro X models.
Memjet was subsequently countersued by HP regarding its own patents. It is fairly common practice for technology companies to sue and countersue when their developed technologies turn out to be too common. The Memjet HP global settlement will result in the dismissal of three cases spread across two continents. Two of the cases that will be dismissed are in the US, while the third one is in Germany.
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