The Power of Patents

The Memjet Technology is well protected by patents in the US and around the world. Patents are an important part of the printer business and an important part of providing valuable technology to brands interested in developing printing devices based on the Memjet technology.

Silverbrook Research Ltd, Pty holds over 2,500 Memjet related US patents, with more than 2,000 US patents pending. For more information on the relationship between Silverbrook Research and Memjet Photo Retail, view Memjet's Value Chain.

How the Inkjet Patent Graph (above) was determined:

The graph above shows the number of patents relating to inkjet technology granted by the US Patent Office to various companies each year for the period 2000 to 2008. The data shown in the 8 Year Inkjet Patent Trend Graph was obtained by searching the US Patent & Trademark Office online Patent Full Text and Image Database.

The search was performed with the query: ("INKJET" or "INK JET") AND ISD/2008$$ AND AN/(company_name). This query finds patents which meet all three of these criteria:

• ("INKJET" or "INK JET")
  This term finds patents which include either "INKJET" or "INK JET" (anywhere in the full text of the patent). The search is not case sensitive.
• ISD/2008$$
  This term finds patents with an official Issue Date in the year 2008.
• AN/ (company_name)
  This terms finds patents where the ownership of the patent is assigned to company_name at the time the patent issued.  For the companies listed above, Brother="Brother", Canon="Canon", etc.  The only exceptions are that Fuji Photo = "Fuji" AND "Photo", Xerox = "Xerox" ANDNOT "Fuji".

For clarity, 10 key companies are shown on the graph, based on their large numbers of patents issued and on their impact on the industry. Many other companies obtained ink jet related patents in the years shown, but with less patents issued.