EFI, Foster City, CA, emerged victorious in its defense of a patent lawsuit filed by Sunrise, FL-based Leggett & Platt, Inc. The Federal Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. ruled decisively and concluded that all the asserted claims of Leggett & Platt’s patent (US Patent No. 6,755,518) were invalid on several grounds.

Leggett & Platt brought the lawsuit during EFI’s acquisition of VUTEk in May 2005, in its home court of the Eastern District of Missouri, claiming that the L&P patent covered VUTEk’s UV ink curing technology. EFI says it has always maintained that VUTEk was the first to invent and patent the UV technologies in question. The federal judge agreed with EFI, finding that VUTEk’s UV curing methods were invented and patented first (US Patent Nos. 6,457,823 and 6,616,355), invalidating all of L&P’s claims used in the lawsuit against EFI.