Posted on: Tuesday, March 4, 2003

Fuji wins suit against camera recycler

Associated Press

NEWARK, N.J. — A company that recycled single-use cameras must pay Fuji Film Co. nearly $23 million for patent infringement, a federal judge ordered.

Jazz Photo Corp., a Piscataway, N.J., firm, reloaded and relabeled used Fuji and Kodak cameras, and then sold them.

A jury last December agreed with Fuji Photo Film USA's claim that Jazz was stealing the technology.

In a ruling Friday, U.S. District Judge Faith Hochberg agreed — and ordered the smaller company to pay the Elmsford, N.Y.-based U.S. arm of the Japanese film giant $22.9 million in damages for relabeling 38 million of Fuji's spent cameras between 1995 and 2001.

Fuji and the Eastman Kodak Film Co., which licenses the single-use technology from Fuji, both recycle the cameras by melting down and remolding the plastic cases. The cases are collected from film labs by middlemen, who sell them to Fuji, Kodak or Jazz. Jazz does not melt them, but merely reloads and relabels them, and sells them for less than the two big film companies.

Fuji officials acknowledged that they sued Jazz partly because the company was eating into market share.

Jazz denied it stole technology.

The International Trade Commission has also barred Jazz and similar firms from importing refurbished single-use cameras.