Goss International Corp. Chief Executive Officer Bob Brown said the press vendor earned a profit across all of its worldwide units and that the company is bullish about the portfolio of products and services it’s able to offer newspapers and other printers.

“We remain optimistic about print, but we know it will change and we see changes in products and formats and run lengths and these are the areas that customers are most focused on,” he said at a pre-drupa press conference held in late March.

“At the end of the day, our customers are focused on driving units of production down and improving their overall flexibility.”

Among topics discussed at the press conference:

•Brown said Goss earned a pre-tax profit of approximately $60 million on revenues of just over $1 billion in 2007. As the firm entered 2008, order backlogs hit $655 million, a figure Brown said eclipsed 2007 projections.

•Goss will introduce a new web offset press aimed at the sheetfed market. The machine, based on Goss M-600 technology, will be unveiled at drupa. Goss will also showcase at the convention its FPS press, a Uniliner S with automatic plate changing and DigiRail, a Magnum 4-page press and a Sunday 4000 and Sunday 5000 press. On the postpress side, Brown said Goss would display the Magnapak inserter and a high-speed commercial stitcher.

•Postpress business continues to grow, with volume in 2007 “very promising,” Brown said. “It looks like this will continue in 2008 as distribution becomes more critical.” Brown said Goss had enjoyed success through its alliance with Ferag and that Goss will continue to leverage that partnership going forward.

•Shanghai Goss Graphic Systems, Goss’ Chinese joint venture company, posted record revenues in 2007, and has tripled its sales since 2000. Last year the company shipped 1,200 press units, a combination of Magnum and Community presses. More than half were exported from China to 28 other countries, Brown said.

•Goss’ cell-phone-to-print ad technology, GossRSVP, is now undergoing testing in two markets. “We’re very excited about the opportunity in this business,” Brown said. “It’s a small seed that is growing into a pretty interesting tree for us.”

•Aftermarket sales and services grew 15 percent in total volume last year. “Our overall aftermarket has been a good mix of rebuilds and upgrades and we feel pretty optimistic there is more opportunity to grow that side of the business and we’re investing internally to do that,” Brown said. He also said Goss is evaluating rolling out a press modification service that would enable Goss Metro users to convert their legacy presses to permit 6-page-wide production.

Meantime, Goss filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to reverse a decision by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals that lifted a U.S. District Court injunction preventing TKS from taking steps to recoup the $31.6 million Goss won in its successful antidumping lawsuit.

The appellate court’s decision allowed TKS to take advantage of Japanese “clawback” legislation designed to help the vendor recover the judgment by counter-suing Goss’ Japanese subsidiary.

“Our view is that the U.S. District Court issued an injunction preventing TKS from taking advantage of legislation that was enacted specifically against us,” Brown told Newspapers & Technology in an exclusive interview.

“We believe the appellate court decision was wrong so we are asking to be heard at the Supreme Court level. Our opinion is that this is a rather significant issue, because Japan unilaterally saw fit to vacate a court ruling and we believe the precedent it sets for manufacturers is a dangerous one.

“It doesn’t seem to me that it encourages investment in Japan when the country can attach a company’s assets when it doesn’t like the punishment a company incurred because it broke the law. And TKS broke the law.”