At the end of Jan., Canon Inc. claimed that it had filed an Infringement Report Form with Amazon based on the alleged use of claim 1 of the German portion of Canon’s European Patent regarding CF400 series toner cartridges (CF400X, CF400A, CF401X, CF402X, CF403X) offered by some compatible cartridge manufactures.

The reported cartridges were intended for use in HP printers and were compatible with OEM HP cartridges. The cartridges contain new – non-OEM – components, including the housing of the first and second unit, the urging portion and the force receiving portion according to claim 1 EP ‘230. As a result of the Infringement Reports, Amazon removed the respective cartridge offers.

According to Canon, it has removed 2，224 listings from Amazon in Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, France, The Netherlands and Turkey in the last fourth quarter, through Amazon Reporting Tool. More importantly, since June 2018, the total number of listings removed from Amazon in Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, France, The Netherlands and Turkey is 26,306.

The same thing was happened in America. Since June 2018, the total number of listings removed from Amazon in Canada, Mexico and the United States of America is 3,216. The listings offered third-party laser toner cartridges from vendors, which Canon believes infringed on one or more of U.S. Patent, Canadian Patent and Mexican Patent.

Obviously, it can be seen that more products involving infringement may be removed from many e-commerce platforms such as Amazon.

However, Starink CF400 series toner cartridges are protected by intellectual property rights and do not infringe Canon's related patents, so that customers are not affected by Amazon and other e-commerce platforms. This is good news for the platform dealers. Before choosing the platform to sell products, or after the infringing products are removed from the platform. They can find alternative non-infringing products in time, effectively reducing the possible damage caused by the removal of products due to infringement.