Q. Is there a specific project or projects that you have worked on recently that you are most proud of?

PH: I’m really proud of the tile murals we have been working on for the Cosmopolitan Hotel in New York. We produced them much faster than expected and they came out looking great. I think it’s the biggest project in Enduring Images’ history.

Q. Specific clients that you have enjoyed working with?

PH: I really enjoy training the monument companies, artists and universities on how to use our digital ceramic printing system. It’s exciting to see the various applications that this technology can accomodate. I also enjoy meeting new people and traveling around. That’s probably the best part of my job here at Enduring Images. There’s nothing like tossing around ideas and developing working relationships with our customers.

Q. What do you feel is your “power move” within the company?

PH: Flexibility. I’m constantly bouncing around different jobs and balancing several different tasks on a daily basis. At any moment someone can come into my office with a project and I have to immediatly re-adjust my priorities for the day. It definitely keeps me on my toes!

Q. What are your hobbies?

PH: I read quite a bit. I dabble in physics. I like bike riding. I love fly fishing. I spend some time producing my own personal creative work. I help out during the alpaca shearing season. I enjoy lounging around on warm sunny days and I like going swimming.

Q. What is the last concert you saw?

PH: The last concert I saw was a local band called Eldren. A friend of mine plays bass in the band. The style of music is hard to pinpoint. I guess you could call it Americana gypsy rock.

Q. What car do you drive?

PH: I drive a Ford Thunderbird. It gets great gas mileage but it doesn’t handle the snow very well. So, these past few months I’ve made the commute by bus quite a few times.

Q. What is the last movie you saw?

PH: The last movie I saw in theaters was the “Big Labowski” as a quote-along. In a quote-along they hand out props for the people to act out scenes from the movie and you’re aloud to be as rambunctious as you want, without hurting anyone. You can yell anything at the screen as it happens in the movie. It can get pretty silly and sometimes profane. Good times!

Q. If you were stranded on a deserted island, what is the one food you could not live without?

PH: I’m torn between lamb and cheese. If it were cheese it would have to be a complete spread with lots of variety. I would definitely pick lamb if I was only allowed one kind of cheese.

Q. What’s your favorite color?

PH: Green! By the far the most versatile color in the world. It symbolizes many different things to many cultures.

Q. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?

PH: I don’t think I could ever leave Colorado permanently. It’s my favorite place and it’s just beautiful all year round. The fishing is great as well! I might consider living in New Zealand for a year or so but I would absolutely have to come back to Colorado.

Q. Any animals living at home?

PH: Yes, I have a cat named Sirona. She’s a nut!

Q. If Hollywood made a movie about your life, whom would you like to see play the lead role as you?

PH: I want to say Jack Nicolson but I asked around the office and I got these answers; Kevin Costner, Nicolas Cage, Patrick Swayze, The Rock, Steve Buscemi and my favorite Robert Downey Jr.

Q. If you could have three wishes, what would they be?

PH: If I could wish for more wishes that would be the one. I’d be set after that. If not my first wish would be that everything in the world could be run on sustainable and renewable energy. My second wish would be that everything we through away be recycled. I’m talking massive recycling plants around the world. My third wish would be for sustainable agriculture. I’m a dreamer.

Q. What have you not done that you really want to do?

PH: I would really like to travel more. Anywhere really. There are so many places that I would like to see in person.

Q. What is the wallpaper on your cell phone?

PH: My cat Sirona.

Q. What can you do that most people cannot?

PH: Well, I guess I can say that I am an excellent dreamer. I remeber my dreams just about every night. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if I’m dreaming or not until I wake up. It can be exhausting some nights.

Q. What is the last book you read?

PH: “The Fingerprints of the Gods” by Graham Hancock. I read a couple other books inbetween it because of the length and depth of the material, but that was the last book I finished.

Q. Favorite sports team and/or athlete?

PH: I’m not really big on sports unless the Broncos are doing well. So, I have to say the Broncos are my favorite team, unless they are playing poorly then I don’t care.

Q. How would you describe yourself in three words?

PH: Creative, patient and adaptive

Q. Anything else we should know about you?

PH: I think that about wraps it up

Thank you Patick for all your hard work and dedication. We are very happy to have you as part of the Enduring Images family.

OC-1a,  4 x 6 cm ovals

RT-2,  18 x 24 cm rectangles (about 7 by 9.5 inches) and

ST-1,  10 x 10 cm (4 x 4 inch) squares.

These parts are now priced at a 20% discount (that’s about $6/part on the RT-2’s).  Get ‘em while they last!  First come first served!  Send us an email and we’ll get them out in a hurry.

And – we also have 300 extra A3 sheets of standard flux lamination paper.  If you need some we will ship from our inventory at $2.70/sheet plus freight to you.  This saves about 15% in handling, freight from Germany and import fees.

The seasons are finally changing and winter is behind us.  The ski resorts in the Rockies are closing one by one (except Loveland and A-Basin which will be open through May) and my skis are put away for the season.   As we enjoy season change, here is one from my daughter -

Spring has sprung.  Fall has fell.   Here comes Summer, hot as … ever.

Health and happiness to all …

Ron Manwiller
303-278-8868

Ceramic printers don’t have to worry about an increase in their waist line but they do get old and you do need a plan for the normal consequence of an aging printer.   The first question to be answered is, do you perform preventive maintenance or just wait until it breaks?  For that one, you’ll have to decide.   Industry consensus is that it’s cheaper and less disruptive to perform  planned, schedule preventive maintenance but this decision is up to you.   Here are some things to consider as your printer gets older.

Color Calibration –  It can take a lot of work to create that perfect artistic tile or the porcelain portrait that is so beautiful it will make the customer cry.   There isn’t much that a good ICC profile can do for you that can’t also be done in Photoshop.  But it can make it easier.  At Enduring Images we calibrate our production printers several times per year.  That isn’t necessary in all cases but over time you might find that it takes longer to get the decal colors right than it did when your printer was new.  That could signal the need for recalibration.  If you don’t mind the extra Photoshop work, no worries.  It has been more than 5 years for some of you who have never recalibrated your printer.  And that’s perfectly fine.  But if you would like to see your colors as true as when your printer was new, recalibration can help.

Somewhere around 4000 print cycles you might start fighting a loss of color density.  Your developer mixture begins to get old around that time and it is likely time for a replacement, like changing the oil in your car.  New developers will do wonders for your colors.

About the same time (around 3000 to 4000 prints) you may (or may not!) notice a decline in the image resolution of your prints.  The Photoconductor Units (PCU’s) are the primary wear component in a LASER printer and that is why LASER printer manufacturers, including Ricoh, only offer a 90 day warranty on those parts (likewise on the Image Transfer Belt).  As they approach the 4000 print age they are no longer capable of holding the same resolution as when they were new.  We just replaced all four on our magenta printer and it made a significant improvement in our image quality.  Here is the trick.  The image change over time is slow and probably imperceptible.  We wouldn’t have noticed it if we hadn’t been preparing for a trade show and had an old wall mural tile sample next to one we just printed.  Side by side the difference jumped off the tile.  But otherwise we wouldn’t have seen it.  If you primarily print artistic tiles or mosaic tiles that don’t require a lot of resolution then you and your customers may be happy, so don’t worry about it.  But if you are making wall murals from a photograph for a tile back splash or porcelain portraits for a cemetery marker and you are in the range of 4000 prints on your PCU’s, you may find a new set of PCU’s will make a marked improvement in your image quality.

When was the last time you watched your training DVD?  Most people can remember only about 20% of what they hear in a lecture.  Of course, experience and the “school of hard knocks” are the most effective teachers but we cover a lot of stuff in the time we spend together during training.  There just might be a small kernel of Photoshop knowledge in there that could help.  And if not, it’s a sure fire cure for insomnia!   We make the video of your training day for a number of reasons and it is a good resource.  Why not take advantage of it?

You are in the manufacturing business.  You rely on your printer for your livelihood.  Worth taking a little time to keep it healthy and fit.

Health and happiness to all …

Ron Manwiller
303-278-8868

”One of the greatest feats of marketing that I have witnessed in my lifetime is Walmart’s success at convincing the US consumer that low price is the most important thing. As millions of US consumers bought into that and as Walmart moved their purchasing headquarters to Shanghai, millions of US jobs went with it to China. Walmart lead this charge and survival dictated that many other US companies do the same thing with devastating effects on the US economy and peoples lives. What is so ironic about this is that the very people who bought into the simplicity of “buy cheap” participated in eliminating their own jobs. Why do so many people believe that buying low price is the most important thing? If they simply stopped, looked at the economy and gave it a little thought the consequences would be apparent. As Mark Felt said “Follow the money.” But the loss of American jobs isn’t the only penalty to be paid, as devastating as that penalty has been.

Purchases for personal use are one thing but what about the purchase of manufacturing equipment for your business? Is purchasing based on lowest price the smart thing to do? In fact, lots of industry data confirms that, in general, it is not the smart thing to do. There is a great deal of research that demonstrates how small a role purchase price plays in the total cost associated with a manufacturing asset. So, how do you decide what to buy? Are you compelled to go for that “low low” purchase price? Or, do you take the time to ask questions and really understanding if price is the only difference, or if there are other costs that need to be considered?

The concept of TCO has been around for a long time and is used widely by industrial purchasing professions to get to the root of what an item really costs over the life of the asset. For this reason, TCO is sometimes called life cycle cost analysis. TCO is an analysis meant to uncover all the lifetime ownership costs that follow from owning certain kinds of assets. These costs include purchase costs, of course, but ownership also brings costs for installing, deploying, operating, upgrading, maintaining and disposing of the asset or the materials used by the asset. For many kinds of acquisitions, and particularly manufacturing systems, TCO analysis finds a very large difference between purchase price and total long term cost. Many studies and lots of data have been collected demonstrating the importance of looking deeper than just the purchase price of an item. One recent industry study published by ITT found –

“Though many plants shop for equipment based on price, industry data shows that purchase costs represent only 10 percent of the total cost of ownership”.

Another example of the relevance of TCO can be found at the Edmund’s.com car valuation guide. Edmunds has developed their own proprietary method of calculating what they call the “True Cost to Own” (TCO, clever) each vehicle. With their system you can find out if “saving” $1000 on purchase price really saves you money or if that car will actually cost more to own than the car thathas a $1000 higher price tag. Like Consumer Reports, Edmund’s is following the lead of industrial purchasing pros in giving greater consideration to the costs you will pay after you buy the asset. The Kelly Blue Book has just started doing the very same thing. It makes sense because while cheap purchase price is easy to find the best economics can only be found with some further investigation. Edmund’s, Kelly Blue Book, Consumer Reports and others are helping to bring TCO thinking to the mass market.So, back to the question, how do you decide what to buy and is the long term cost of ownership part of your thinking? For many of us the hard part is knowing what questions to ask. So, here is a list of some of the questions industrial buyers ask.

Is the manufacturing process for each option the same or, is there a process technology or efficiency advantage to one vs. the other?
Who developed the technology? Am I buying from them or a “fast follower” who may have an incomplete or only empirical understanding?
How does the cost of waste disposal/clean up, environmental impact or pollution control
compare?
Are there operating cost advantages – labor, energy, speed etc?
Are there potential employee hazards created by one of the options?
Are repair and spare parts costs the same?
Are future upgrades possible?
Are there any supplier experience and capability advantages?
Does one option give improved operational capability ie. – higher quality, manufacturing
flexibility etc?
What do their customers say about them?

The list of hidden cost categories above could be extended for many kinds of purchases and you could make it shorter as well. But if you ask questions about some of these areas you may find real differences between the options you are considering; differences that over the useful life the purchase could save far more money than any price difference between them.

Price is important, of course. And it’s easy to know, which makes it useful as a decision criteria. But next time you are gearing up to strike that hard bargain and negotiate that excellent price, keep in mind that the assumption price is most important in choosing one option over another is, in many cases, simply wrong and a potentially expensive error in thinking. Invest that effort uncovering some of the hidden costs and you will likely save more money and make a wiser choice of supplier. Companies who place great emphasis on the low price of the products they sell often have little else to differentiate what they are selling.

So, next time you’re trying to decide between several options, do what the pros do and use a little TCO thinking. Ask some of the questions above. With just a little extra effort, you should be able to find out if that low price is really a good deal or a way for the supplier to capitalize on what you don’t know and the questions most people don’t ask.

As Will Rogers once said – “It’s not what you pay but what it costs you that counts.”

Until next time … best of health and happiness

Ron

Another day passes and you’re now just three days from needing to ship everything. The replacement technician finally arrives and discovers the part needed has to be ordered. Another day goes by and the costs are going up up up as next day freight, service time and parts costs are all adding up. And all you can do is wait, and hope that the customer’s deadline can somehow be magically extended.

I visited a sign shop recently and the owners had just replaced three pieces of equipment with the latest and greatest $150,000 flat bed printer which does “everything” he needs. It took up the space of the other printers and most of his shop. The new printer is a beauty. It has all the bells and whistles and does everything faster and better. He loved the fact that most of his production could now be completed on one piece of equipment. I asked the owner, “What happens if you’re in the middle of a job and it breaks?” He looked at me blankly and said, “It better not.” I thought to myself “But you KNOW it will.” The piece of equipment that never breaks has yet to be invented. He obviously doesn’t have a plan. Do you?

First and foremost, accept the inevitability of your equipment breaking. You know that it will. Your first call is simple, always call us first. We can often get you out of the jam but, if we can’t fix it, what’s next? The next step is calling the Ricoh 800 number listed in the materials that came with your printer. If you don’t know where those materials are, go find them and keep them in a handy place. The folks who answer your call are generally experienced and only get that job after a number of years in the field. If they can’t fix the problem over the phone, it gets interesting.

The people on the 800 line have the responsibility of scheduling any necessary on-site service visit from one of the local Ricoh Field Service people. Do you know your Ricoh Field Service Technician? If not, then your emergency will be no more important to the tech than any other call on their log. Find out in advance who your tech is and get to know them. Invite them to visit and show them what you do. Invest in building a relationship with them and ask them what the procedures are for getting the fastest help. If your tech is unavailable for some reason, what is the backup plan? For your piece of equipment, what parts are stocked and what parts are not stocked? How long does it take to get the non- stocked parts and is it possible to add more of them to the spare parts inventory? You get the idea. The objective is to know what you will do before you need to do it.

The background for this blog has come up recently in our shop. I can give you this advice now because, like the guy with the new sign printer, I didn’t have a plan and I learned the hard way. I didn’t know who to call when my service tech left a voice mail saying he had hurt his back and couldn’t come out. And we were desperate to finish a job for a company that can bring us a very large amount of additional business. And when no one answered the central call number I didn’t know who else to call. And, … the worst case scenario … crisis mode. After living through this, I know what to do next time. Nothing like the school of hard knocks.

I learned something else too. When equipment reaches the end of its useful life that doesn’t mean every component in the device is at the end of its useful life. Upgrading to a new replacement printer may be less expensive than the price of repairing the old one. I had this experience as well. We use Ricoh printers for both ceramic decorating and also for our conventional office printing (we are Ricoh dealers so no surprise there). About 6 months ago our office printer failed in the middle of printing several thousand pages for a mailer. My service tech told me it was going to be about $1200 to fix it – all four toner pumps failed at the same time. A new Ricoh SP C430DN cost about $1500. I bought a new one. The old printer is now a treasure trove of useful spare parts. We just harvested the fuser assembly to replace the one in our ceramic magenta printer. Our time to repair the next time we have a breakdown will be short because we have parts on the “shelf”.

Murphy discovered that “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” Too often we discover on our own the corollary to that rule from Murphy, whatever goes wrong will go wrong at precisely the worst possible time. Have a plan for that and your recovery will be less costly and less time consuming.

And from the old archive of wisdom comes this – “Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes.”

Best regards to all,

Ron

One of the unique features of the Zimmer toners that is invisible to the eye is that they are “pre-fluxed”. If you are a ceramicist you know how and why this is so enormously beneficial and why Michael spent so much time insuring that his toner formulations had this property. If you aren’t, here are two of the most obvious benefits that result from the use of pre-fluxed toners.

First is that they bond more uniformly and effectively to any decorated substrate. Ceramic decals that are not printed with pre-fluxed toners can simply delaminate from the substrate after firing if they are not prepared carefully fired correctly. This is because they rely solely on a topically applied flux layer for adhesion to the substrate. Delamination after firing can occur for a number of reasons associated with the incorrect or incomplete application of the flux top coat. With pre-fluxed toners fired to the correct temperature this is not a worry because the flux in the toner formulation itself insures a permanent bond. Except for our “in-glaze” toner set, which fires at very high temperature and is designed to embed into the glaze (in-glaze) on commercial ceramic materials like ceramic tile, the other 5 toner sets in the Zimmer system are pre-fluxed. Each is designed for a specific decorating task and covers a range of firing temperatures, like decorating glass at 1200 °F, enameled metal at 1400 °F and various clay bodies at 1600°F. The use of pre-fluxed toners enables a very high bond between the ceramic pigment and the item being decorated so you never have to ask yourself “Gee, did I do that right?” or worry about a ticking time bomb next year or the year after.

The second major advantage of pre-fluxed toners is that they expand your decorating flexibility. This is because you can rely on the flux in the toner itself for acceptable adhesion, good gloss, and here is the kicker, without a flux shadow. If you have ever applied a ceramic decal, fired it and saw the edge of the flux coating, you know what a flux shadow is. The finished result looks like a sticker was applied. Pre fluxed toners eliminate the necessity of topical application of additional flux. For items like tile it is not a concern because you simply cover the entire surface of the part and hence there is no edge to the decoration. But eliminating the need for an additional flux topcoat means you can eliminate any flux shadow regardless of the complexity of the image or size of the substrate. For example, suppose you wanted to add a complex decoration to a flower vase – maybe a picture of a flower with some text. Unless you can carefully cut the decal right at the border of the graphic, an impossible task for complex fonts and graphics, it is likely you will see the flux top coat that was used to make the decal. It may seem trivial but for certain decorations on large substrates the ability to eliminate the flux shadow can be the difference between a product that looks professionally produced and one that looks amateurish. You might be wondering how large decorators who screen print decals deal with this challenge. Simple, they make a screen specifically for applying a flux top coat to the decoration. You can achieve the same professional looking finished result simply by using pre-fluxed toners and a cover coat without a flux additive.

For certain, there are good reasons to use topically applied flux with specific properties, like a lead free flux to insure a food safe decoration, or a chemically matched selenium flux to preserving bright reds in the selenium red toner set – just two examples. But the option to avoid topically applied flux can be very beneficial. So, if you have a complex decorating job and must insure complete elimination of the flux shadow, no worries. Using pre-fluxed toners such as the ones formulated by Michael Zimmer makes this as easy as a mouse click. Screen printable liquid cover coat and dry thermal lamination paper are available without any flux and of course all the fluxed “flavors” for the 6 toner formulations are available as well. Have a decorating challenge?

Call us at 303 278 8868. We probably have the solution.

If it smells bad, It probably is bad! So don’t do it!   Until Zimmer invented digital ceramic printing, all ceramic decorating was a liquid process. Liquid glazes and liquid ceramic cover coats using acetone, MEK, Naphtha and other nasty solvents were used for essentially all ceramic decorating. Many who use our decorating system will never have the experience of smelling the noxious fumes associated with ceramic cover coats and this is by design. The cleanliness that results from the dry application of ceramic cover coat eliminates both hazards to the operator and hazards to the environment. It also saves a ton of time in the production of short runs of ceramic decals by eliminating the drying time necessary when applying liquid cover coat. So, the advantages of a dry systems are significant especially when your production is for one of a kind items like memorial portraits. But, what about tile murals or jobs that require the production of larger quantities? In those cases it does make sense to have the printed ceramic decals screen printed with an appropriate liquid cover coat. At Enduring Images we take great care to avoid hazards to the folks who work here and also to avoid environmental hazards. So, when we have several hundred tiles or pieces of tableware to make, we print the images and then take them to a local screen printer to finish the decals by screen printing our cover coat. Companies who are in the business of screen printing have the facilities and know-how to do the job safely and to manage the disposal of the waste materials. High volume air ventilators, respirators for the screen operators and special facilities for recovering the cleaning solvent waste streams are necessary to do the screen print job safely. Any company in that business will have all of those. Trust your nose… What about aerosol spray cans of ceramic cover coat? We do not allow any of the ladies our office to use that application approach and we don’t use it for any commercial job, only testing. Spray cans are highly efficient at putting all of those nasty solvent fumes into the air and they also send ceramic flux particles into the air as well. As a matter of practice, only if you spray those materials outdoors or have the facilities of a screen printing company, can you be certain that you are not inhaling hazardous amounts of those materials. Trust your nose. If it smells bad it probably is bad so don’t do it. But, if you MUST use spray cans and are willing to take the risk, here is a money saving tip we tell any of our customers who want to try it, against our advice. Buy liquid cover coat in a 500 ml or 1 KG cans and take it to your local paint store. Many paint stores have the equipment needed to put paint (and ceramic cover coat) into an aerosol can. Our local Sherwin Williams charges $9.00 per can. No reason at all to pay more. Give us a call and we will share the recipe with you 303-278-8868 or message us on Facebook. Until next time – all the best of success and good health, Ron Manwiller 303-278-8868 COO, Enduring Images Connect with me on LinkedIn   Friend on Facebook Follow on Twitter Forward to a Friend     Getting to Know Phil Morishige… If there is one single thing that makes Enduring Images great, it’s the amazing team of employees we have. Everyone on the team is instrumental to the company’s success and we want to take time to recognize them and help you get to know them better. So let’s kick off this month by sharing more about Phil Morishige. Q. What do you do at Enduring Images? PM:  Help customers improve, increase, expand, diversify their current business or start a new one using our digital ceramic technology. Q. Is there a specific project or projects that you have worked on recently that you are most proud of?  PM: I enjoy getting to know each of my customers especially when they come visit us in Golden, CO for training.  I love meeting new people from all over. Q. What are your hobbies? PM: I love to camp and fish with my kids, play golf when I can.  Anything outside! Q. Favorite sports team and/or athlete? PM: Denver Broncos and the Colorado Avalanche Thank you Phil, for all your hard work and dedication.  We are very happy to have you as part of the Enduring Images family. About Enduring ImagesEnduring Images was founded in 2003, and in April 2004, we made our first commercial sale of a digitally printed ceramic product.This first printed ceramic product was created using a Canon CLC 750 copier, and in the years since then,the digital ceramic printing equipment and technology have changed dramatically. Read More…

  ]]> http://www.enduring-images.com/if-it-smells-bad-it-probably-is-bad-so-dont-do-it/feed/ 0 http://www.enduring-images.com/michael-zimmers-invention/ http://www.enduring-images.com/michael-zimmers-invention/#comments Tue, 13 Mar 2012 20:08:19 +0000 enduringimages http://www.enduring-images.com/?p=297 I have read the blog string with interest and I think some history is useful, specifically, where did this new marvelous technology come from? The short answer is Michael Zimmer. Yes, one man. The long answer follows.

I was watching Jurassic Park last week and in one of the opening scenes the Jurassic Park IT guy is meeting with a representative from another company that desperately wishes to open a similar theme park. Of course this other company doesn’t have the know-how so they have “hatched” a plan to pay the Jurassic Park IT guy to give it to them. At the end of the scene the IT guy collects his payoff and says “In 18 hours your company is going to catch up on 10 years of research.” The villains in the movie are revealed.

Back to Michael Zimmer. He’s a really good guy. You’d like him if you met him. Family person with children who work at the family business, very much like many of you. So what does that scene in Jurassic Park have to do with digital ceramic print technology? Michael did in fact spend 10 years of his life developing the world’s first LASER printer and ceramic pigment based toner process. 10 years of hard, expensive, frustrating work, over coming countless technical problems and spending countless amounts of money and hours. This marvelous technology of printing ceramic pigments on a LASER printer is the result of Michael’s persistence, determination, creativity and hard work. After finally developing the first printable ceramic pigment toner and learning how to use it in a commercial LASER printer, he spent even more money filing patents around the world with the hope of enjoying some well-earned return on his investment. At that point the work still isn’t over. Now he has to bring his invention to the world and tell people about it. In the last 20 years he has refined and improved the technology into the highest quality, most flexible, environmentally cleanest, safest, least toxic and hazardous ceramic decorating process available. He simplified printing a ceramic decal to a mouse click and along the way eliminated all hazardous materials from the process – no naphtha, no MEK no acetone no VOC or flux particle laden sprays. In fact, no liquids of any kind except water. An amazing accomplishment. And, no surprise, just like those guys in Jurassic Park, companies and people all over the world – Chinese, Russian, Italian, etc etc have read his patents and used his inventions to “…catch up on 10 years of research.” Imagine you were Michael Zimmer. How would you feel about the companies that didn’t earn it but simply used what he created? Patents are designed to protect and reward the people who invest in innovation. When you think about those other companies and possibly consider buying from them ask yourself – do I really want to be one those of those guys from Jurassic Park?

Now I know some you are thinking “Oh blah blah blah.” So leave behind the moral and ethical considerations. But I sincerely hope you will give them some thought because what is happening to Michael is simply not right. But if you don’t care, and some of you won’t, there are some other considerations.

The US Patent Office has a 200 year old database of incredible searchable technology. It has a very thorough and accurate approach to identifying “prior art”. It is not in the business of recognizing inventions or awarding patents that are not the real deal. Michael Zimmer has a number of patents on the materials and processes for printing ceramic pigment based toners using electrostatic LASER printers. Before you consider buying any system, consider the risks associated with buying a system from any company that can’t grant you the technology license rights to use Michael’s patented process. You can verify on your own the potential risks and penalties. All of the companies that have learned from Michael’s creation and made their own systems may tell you not to worry about the patents or that the patents aren’t enforceable. It may be true that the patents aren’t enforceable in China or Russia and maybe not in Italy. But patents issued by the United States Patent Office are enforceable and are the law here in this country. In the case of patent violation the financial penalties are potentially severe.

Here’s the dilemma. Who can you believe? In one “corner” Michael Zimmer and his partner distributors. In the other “corner” the Chinese, Russian, Italian, Greek etc etc. companies and their partners. What can you do? The answer is actually pretty easy. Read Zimmer’s patents for yourself. Go to www. USPTO.gov and find patent number 6,068,692. If you’ve never done this before you might find it interesting and maybe even fun. Focus on the Claims section in the patents. If you read patent 6,068,692, and possibly some of the others, you can make your own assessment of how the US Patent Office sees things. Or, if you want an expert to do that for you, have a good patent lawyer take a look and follow their advice. That is pretty expensive but it will truly be objective advice you can trust and believe in.

Or even easier than that, imagine that you’re Michael.