Lexmark Wins Injunction in Toner Cartridge Suit

goingincirclez writes "Cnet reports that Lexmark has won an injunction against Static Control Components, Inc., which effectively prohibits the manufacture of recycled / third party toner cartidges. Slashdot covered the initial filing of the suit. SCC also has a rebuttal site that definitely warrants checking out. I would like to think that other printer manufacturers won't follow suit, but I'm not that naive. Better start your trust fund for ink cartridges."

Comments

This is going to get pathetic

[jlk_71]

I cannot see how this is ever going to turn out good for the consumer. This will enable the makers of printers to almost charge whatever they want for their cartridges.

#jlk

Re:This is going to get pathetic

[Waffle Iron]

There's a reason those cartridges cost so much. Quality ink is always made from the finest rare Cognac. Since Cognac can cost almost $1000 for a 1 liter bottle, and an inkjet cartridge contains about an ounce of ink, you're actually getting about $30 of cognac, and there's very little markup involved.

(Or maybe I'm getting this backwards. Fine cognac might be expensive because it's made from inkjet ink... I don't remember; I'll have to look it up.)

Better yet....

[SpaceCadetTrav]

Just print everything at work.

Not sure this is the wrong decision

[Alderete]

While I'm certainly not a fan of the DMCA, I'm not sure this is a poor decision by the courts, etc. I think that it's probably reasonable for Lexmark to be able to forbid third-parties from selling supplies, if that's a business decision they want to make.

However, I don't think that, even if they ultimately win this case all the way up the line, that this is a winning business strategy. I certainly am not going to buy a printer that is tied exclusively to the manufacturer.

This can't be good publicity for Lexmark; every story is explaining that the manufacturer's supplies are more expensive. That's got to have consumers thinking about buying from HP, or Epson, or whomever.

I think this is a classic case of shooting yourself in the foot, and then sueing for the privilege of doing so again.

Re:Not sure this is the wrong decision

[Anonymous Coward]

While I'm certainly not a fan of the DMCA, I'm not sure this is a poor decision by the courts, etc. I think that it's probably reasonable for Lexmark to be able to forbid third-parties from selling supplies, if that's a business decision they want to make.


No, it's not. It's not reasonable for GM to put an additive in a GM-brand gas, and have GM cars only run on that. It's not reasonable for Lexmark to force you to use lexmark-brand ink.

Now, if they were to say that using 3rd-party ink violated the warranty, and detected that, so if you had a printer gunged up by a cheap knock-off ink they wouldn't replace it, then that's reasonable. But a blanket "you can't use it" isn't.

Re:Not sure this is the wrong decision

[Alyeska]

I may as well have thrown the printer away and bought a new one every time at those prices.

Some time ago, friends of mine here (in AK) began doing just that. They did the math, discovered it was cheaper to buy a new printer from [major membership-type warehouse outlet] each time a cartridge ran out. Perfectly good printers became targets for a wide variety of projectile weapons.

Good News for Dell

[crow]

This is good news for Dell. They'll be selling their own printers in about a month, and anything that makes other manufacturers look bad will help them gain marketshare. What will be interesting is to see how Dell plays in the ink cartridge business. Will they try to be like everyone else, or will they try to do to ink prices what they've done to PC prices?

I'll never buy another lexmark printer

[seanadams.com]

I bought their Optra C710 color laser about a year. I thought I was getting a deal at $1200, but it is the worst printer I have ever owned.

It came with all toner cartridges only 25% filled. This was not mentioned anywhere on the box or on the web site where I ordered.

The printer has actually functioned maybe half of the time that we've owned it. Two on-site service calls later, and we're still having problems:

• Why does it say paper jam when there is no paper jam?
  
• "Coating roll life warning" and "transfer belt warning" come up all the time, even right after fresh ones are installed
  
• Duplexing option jams on every 100th sheet
  
• Print often seems to stick to the transfer belt and gets "ghosted" onto subsequent pages
  
• The printer just disappears from the network at least once per day and needs a hard reboot
  

In contrast, our HP laserjet has NEVER missed a beat. Look I know this is not a representative sample or anything, but there are clearly DESIGN flaws with this printer and it should not be on the market. Even after multiple service calls it does not work.

Re:Printing is sooooo last centery.

[IIRCAFAIKIANAL]

Because my monitor is too heavy to bring on the train. And there's no plugs.

I guess I could tape a printout to the monitor, and put the monitor on a cart of some kind... Oh wait, we don't want to print.

I guess I could read the pdf and commit it to memory. D'oh, but another person can't read my mind (at least since I lined my toque with tinfoil).

Well, I'm out of ideas...

Hurray! This is great!

[thorrbjorn]

Yes, I'm serious. This court ruling makes me very happy.

Why? The DMCA is an unjust law, and as someone wiser than I once said, the best way to get an unjust law struck down is to vigorously enforce it.

Joe and Jane Sixpack don't care about some Russian company's software or some professors speach. They probably aren't even aware of them. But if they can't get cheap ink cartriges anymore ... that might get their attention.

HP says it won't follow suit

[jACL]

From a Businessweek article: 'More important, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ ), which dominates both the printer and the $7 billion toner market, has no intention of following Lexmark's course. "We believe in customer choice," says Pradeep Jotwani, the senior vice-president who heads HP's lucrative imaging-supplies business. "If they want to buy from remanufacturers, that's fine. It's our job to make them not want to."'