A German court has made its latest ruling in a long-running intellectual property dispute between Durst and EFI. The Düsseldorf District Court found in favour of Durst on February 28th and has instructed EFI to 'refrain from supplying, bringing to the market or using the QS and GS series printing devices in the Federal Republic of Germany'.

The announcement follows two previous rulings in the case, which relates to a patent for the invention of 'overlapping print-head arrays for the delivery of white and coloured inks' to prime a substrate before over-printing. In November 2009 EFI announced that it had been successful in an initial hearing with a trial court, while in December 2011 an appeals court decided that Durst's utility model – the German equivalent of a patent – was 'not valid or enforceable'.

California-based EFI, whose German subsidiary is also implicated in the court action, claims that Durst's technology is not novel and that its own print-head arrays were in use before those of the Austrian company came to market. EFI has the right, under German law, to appeal against the decision.