Canon U.S.A. and Ribstone Systems Announce Availability of New MEAP Scan-to-Print Application for the Legal Marketplace.

PHILADELPHIA -- Ribstone Introduces the First Vertical Market Application To Leverage Canon's MEAP; Additional Ribstone Applications With MEAP Are Scheduled for Availability in 2H 2005

Canon U.S.A., Inc., the nation's market share brand leader in black-and-white and color copier solutions(1), and Ribstone Systems, a developer of document capture and processing solutions for the legal marketplace, today announced the availability of the first vertical market application to use Canon's innovative Multifunctional Embedded Application Platform (MEAP) for imageRUNNER devices.

Ribstone's Scan-To-Print Application will be available in late second quarter, 2005.

Utilizing Canon's proprietary MEAP Software Developers Kit (SDK), Ribstone has developed a MEAP client for their popular Scan-to-Print application, specifically designed to facilitate more efficient document and indexing workflow processes for legal environments. The resulting application can be loaded and executed directly on to imageRUNNER multifunction (MFP) copiers, thereby eliminating the need and expense for an external touch screen monitor.

The Ribstone MEAP applications are presented to walk-up users on a full-color LCD control panel of MEAP enabled imageRUNNER devices, thereby transforming the traditional MFP into an efficient and stand-alone imaging management system. Ribstone's MEAP Scan-to-Print is an easy-to-use, Bates numbering application for the simultaneous creation of paginated photo copies for corporate legal departments and law firms. Utilizing the Scan-to-Print solution, operators are able to scan, Bates number and print files with just one pass of an original document from an imageRUNNER device.

"The migration of Ribstone Systems functionality to Canon's MEAP devices represents a significant development within the litigation vertical marketplace," Greg Ryan, senior manager, Industry and Alliance Marketing for Canon U.S.A., Inc. "This integration makes Canon imageRUNNER MFP's one of the most efficient and cost effective hardware-software solutions available for law firms and litigation support providers."

As part of an agreement announced in late-2004 at Canon's annual Digital Solutions Forum (DSF) event, Ribstone's Scan-to-Print MEAP application is the first in a series of four document solutions to incorporate Canon's unique MEAP technology for the legal industry. Features from Ribstone's Image Printer, Capture System and Scan Express applications are the other products scheduled to utilize MEAP, under the agreement, and will be available later this year.

"As one of Canon's foremost Alliance Partners, Ribstone is taking the lead on incorporating MEAP technology into its popular family of offerings for the legal marketplace," added Greg Ryan. "This new Ribstone application represents the perfect example of how MEAP can allow businesses to significantly improve document workflow and efficiency, while helping to reduce overall document imaging and processing costs."

"In providing an application built on Canon's MEAP platform, law firms, litigation service bureaus and facilities management companies will have the industry's most feature-rich Bates numbering solution offered on any copier," said Eric Rodriguez, President & CEO, Ribstone Systems, Inc. "This is just one of many office tasks that will converge and integrate on MEAP enabled devices." The Scan-to-Print user interface is facilitated through the imageRUNNER display, greatly reducing the total solution cost, and is a practical and robust solution to place on convenience copiers or in-house copy center machines.

With Ribstone applications, legal print-for-pay vendors and law firms are able to rapidly transform boxes of hard-copy legal documents into digital imaging files that can be identically reproduced and shared with opposing counsel as part of the legal discovery process. Ribstone users are also able to perform complex referencing, indexing and cataloging tasks, such as applying Bates Numbering, creating graphic and searchable PDFs, OCR processing and generating loadfiles for the legal industry. Legal industry users include legal photocopy and print-for-pay vendors, facilities management firms, corporate legal departments and CRDS.

About Ribstone Systems

Ribstone Systems, a Chicago-based company, has become an industry leader in the convergence of office technologies by offering the most dynamic solutions for imaging, image-processing and printing in document intensive business environments. Ribstone Systems helps clients leverage multifunction products by marrying intuitive and feature-rich software to the latest generation of office copiers.

About Canon U.S.A., Inc.

Canon U.S.A., Inc. delivers consumer, business-to-business, and industrial imaging solutions. The Company is listed as one of Fortune's Most Admired Companies in America and is rated #35 on the BusinessWeek list of "Top 100 Brands." Its parent company Canon Inc. (NYSE:CAJ) is a top patent holder of technology, ranking third overall in the U.S. in 2004, with global revenues of $33.3 billion. For more information, visit www.usa.canon.com.

All referenced product names, and other marks, are registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Prices, availability and specifications subject to change without notice.

(1)Source - Gartner Dataquest - "Printer Quarterly Statistics United States - Database," Camille Iorns February 2005.