Umax has been forced to cease promoting its Astra 1220 scanner in the US as a 36-bit device, thanks to an injunction granted to rival scanner maker Visioneer. Visioneer's suit claimed that the 1220 is actually a 30-bit scanner with added interpolation software to approximate the higher image quality. The higher the number the of bits a scanner uses to create a digital image, the greater the number of colours the picture contains and thus the higher the quality. The injunction, granted by the US District Court for North Carolina, forbids Umax from selling the Astra 1220 until it changes the machine's packaging and advertising. It can continue to use the term '36-bit', but it must qualify it by stating the scanner's hardware is only capable of digitising at 30 bits. ®