Since traditional inkjet cartridges dispense a drop of ink roughly the size of a skin cell, it doesn’t take much, tech-wise, to turn your old HP Deskjet into a Frankenstein-style life machine. (Of course, technicians thoroughly clean and sanitize old cartridges before loading them with cellular matter.) The team has had success so far with mice, but have yet to move to human trials. The potential for this kind of device, however, is enormous. The Armed Forces is interested because battle casualties frequently include severe burns, and those soldiers may have little untouched skin from which to graft. Check out the video after the break to see an explanation by one of the researchers himself.
The video somewhat oversimplifies the process, as it glosses over the time needed to culture cells — time that most burn patients don’t have to waste. That being said, doctors would most likely look to donor cells for their skin-ink. A 3-D scanner would then map the topography of the burn site, and fill in the “gaps” with keratinocytes or fibroblasts straight from the printer. While this isn’t exactly the opening from ‘The Fifth Element,’ it’s not too far off, either. If you are unlucky enough to acquire third-degree burns a decade from now, you may find one of these printers hovering over your hospital bed, saving your limbs and life.

Via: switched.com

The defendants have the capability to make nearly 10 million counterfeit cartridges a year in Asia, Hewlett Packard says. The 28-page federal filing is the latest in a long line of complaints that China is making up its technology gap with the United States through industrial espionage, theft, and wholesale patent infringement.MicroJet “sells generic and/or made-to-order infringing printer ink cartridges to other companies, including defendants Mipo and PTC [PTC Holdings Ltd., of Hong Kong],” and sells them itself as well, Hewlett Packard says. HP claims the defendants violated six patents after stealing the HP components.

Hewlett Packard says it discovered the scheme after seeing color printer ink cartridges for sale on Amazon.com and Craigslist, advertised as “HP compatible.HP bought some of the cartridges from Amazon.com, then used HP’s internal tracking database to cross-reference ID numbers on components, and found that the cartridges had “a genuine HP printhead and a non-HP cartridge body that closely resembled a genuine HP cartridge body.”And it found that the printheads came from HP lots from Malaysia that had never been assembled by HP – “i.e., were identified as production gaps.” All of these stolen items “were packaged in a ‘Mipo’ labeled box and were individually wrapped in a clear plastic interior packaging that is clearly consistent with the standard packaging for products manufactured by defendant Microjet,” according to the complaint.HP demands an injunction and damages for patent infringement, unfair competition and conversion. It is represented by Ruffin Cordell with Fish and Richardson of Washington, D.C.

Via: courthousenews.com