Insight sues HP over imaging technology

Insight Development of San Ramon, California is suing HP because it says that HP has "misappropriated " its imaging technology. In particular, the company claims that HP had infringed an Insight patent and misapproriated trade secrets. HP has a non-disclosure agreement with Insight to use its Virtual Image (VI) technology in printing high-quality Web images. The case will be heard in the federal court in Oakland. With a five per cent increase in revenue and a one per cent increase in earnings in it 3rd quarter results, Lewis Platt, HP's CEO, did not regard the results as satisfactory so he has circulated a taped pep talk to HP staff. In it he laments that HP has "lost sight in recent years of some of the fundamentals that earned us our reputation" as a well-managed company. He did not regard the recent cost-cutting and growth rates as satisfactory and called for a change of attitude. The situation "won't turn round on its own," he said. He asked the staff to be as careful in spending HP's dollars as they would be in spending their own. HP has decided to have an internal communications broadcast system and has selected PointCast. The system is being used by around 1,000 people in HP's software and services group, and will be rolled out to 27,000 employees in the business unit. ®