The company has sought to put a positive spin on last week’s decision by The Hague District Court that Xingraphics’ FIT thermal plate technology does not infringe on the Agfa patent.

“This judgment confirms the validity of Agfa’s key patent for positive thermal plates, European patent EP823327,” the company said in a statement. “However, the infringement by the FIT plates of Xingraphics was found to be insufficiently substantiated by the presented evidence.

“On the other hand, non-infringement was not proven by Xingraphics either, so the court could not grant Xingraphics’ request for a declaration of non-infringement. Moreover, the court allowed Agfa Graphics to request additional seizures of Xingraphics plates in the future.

“The Agfa Graphics team will now prepare the necessary additional evidence of the infringement of the Agfa Graphics patent in order to obtain a decision in favor of Agfa.

“The confirmation by a court of high reputation of the validity of Agfa’s key patent EP823327 reinforces Agfa’s case against other competitors which are infringing this patent.”

Xingraphics last week claimed that its victory was due to the fact that “its technology was superior to Agfa’s in performance and characteristic”.

As a result of the decision, Agfa has been ordered to pay for Xingraphics’ legal costs for the case.

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