Slashdot Mirror
U.S. Court: Lexmark Can Tie Rebates To Refills
SteveOU writes "Lexmark won a favorable judgement in its attempt to prevent competitors from refilling its cartridges. The judgement, issued by Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, was a big loss for 'the rest of us,' reading in part "Because of its patents, Lexmark has the right to impose conditions on the sale of its patented product. It may restrict a purchaser's ability to repair it, which is what in essence the single-use condition does." What now? Will GM prohibit unauthorized repairs of its patented car components?"
I'd be more than willing to spend slightly more money for a printer that is actually built to be used more than 6 months before either falling apart (cannon,lexmark), or being superceded by the same printer under a different model number that uses totally different replacement cartridges (HP).
Look at the crap that printer manufacturers are pawning off on people nowdays. You got your printer selling at like $70US, and refills selling at $50US. It just makes no sense. If you're like me and only print when absolutely necessary, then by the time your ink runs out you might just as well buy a whole new printer and forget about the new cartridges altogether.
I just replaced my old Canon with a new i550 two weeks ago. The deciding factor was ink cost. Despite good reviews on both HPs and Lexmarks (along with the Canons), throwing in the cost of refills priced everything else out of the market. And not only is Canon ink cheap, the printers make very economical use of it. HPs and Lexmarks are real guzzlers by comparison.
Until their inks become affordable, I won't even consider other brands.
Lee Kaiwen, Taiwan
Speaking with my brother, a mechanic, on this subject just recently, I learned the following. It is getting close to impossible to work on cars these days without first using computer diagnostics. Each of these systems is specific to the automobile's make. Moreover, diagnostic systems are proprietary.
Gone are the days when you could work on your own car. A friend of my brother -- who my brother says is an excellent amateur mechanic -- tried to fix his own car and ended up making it worse. The reason? He lacked the diagnostic equipment, and there is just no way to begin without first using it.
Even independent shops are being hurt by this, since they must purchase the equipment for each manufacturer whose cars they wish to service, and the manufacturers change their systems every few years. Obviously, the "authorized" repair shops at the individual dealers have an advantage.
It's well known that the profit margin on automobiles is growing more narrow. Companies are looking to make money by offering financing and through parts and repairs. They have an incentive to get you to deal with them exclusively.
They haven't gotten to prohibiting "unauthorized" repairs directly; but they are getting more and more successful at a de facto prohibition.
If only Linus would go into car manufacturing!
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
McDonald's knew their coffee was hot enough to cause third-degree burns within a few seconds' contact, but said they did not intend on lowering the temperature, because as one juror put it "[McDonald's has a] callous disregard for the safety of the people."
Oh, and by the way, the lady initially asked for compensation for her medical bills but was offered a minuscule amount that wouldn't cover the bills. The jury awarded $2.7 punitive and $160,000 in compensatory damages (the latter reduced from $200,000 because she was partially responsible), but the judge reduced the punitive to $480,000. McDonald's then settled for something much less (sealed to prevent curious eyes from seeing).
Yeah, right.
There is no net positive impact for the economy from licensing fees. What one company gets, another pays. More earnings for workers in one firm means pink slips for another firm.
The only possible positive impact from patents is when more inventions are created because of the additional incentives. This is true to some extent in many industries. But it should be patently obvious that it's not the case for Lexmark. While you might be mislead by extremely low prices of new printers, benefits to consumers are not very clear, because of just as extremely high prices for cartriges. The price of one colour print is simply too great. This is an indicator that certain printer manufacturers do not turn the limited monopoly granted to them into public good. That can only mean one thing - the monopoly should be revoked, not strengthened by rulings such as this one.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Consumers have been focussed on low up-front costs for years, the high cost of ink and paper are well-known but rarely figure in buying decisions.
It's not even as if people are kept in the dark, this has been common knowledge for as long as ink jet printers have been around.
And yet people choose cheap printers from HP and Lexmark ignoring the long term ink and paper costs... when companies like Xerox and Canon offer much cheaper ink, but slightly more expensive printers.
It's a classic choice facing consumers: low-upfront plus high maintenance, or high upfront and low maintenance. There are many examples:
- low-energy light bulbs (do you buy these?)
- better insulation in your home
- fuel-efficient cars
- season tickets for transport
- freezing food in the summer when it's cheap
- etc.
The fact is that people value choice, very highly. And when it comes to printers, many people prefer to pay more for ink if they can get away with lower upfront costs.
The manufacturers have generally responded by subsiding printers with ink, and their cartridges are designed to support this business model. You don't have to like it, and we apparently still have choices, but it's a valid business model and people who complain are just being fanciful. Ink is cheap, yes, but printer technology is not: someone has to pay, and it's either in the form of $199 printers and $5 ink, or $45 printers and $25 ink.
If my car only cost $995 new, I'd be very happy to accept restrictions on the spare parts I can use. Fact is, cars and printers are not sold on the same basis.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
I'm always amazed that magazines don't talk about cartridge costs in their printer reviews, but I think that if everyone just got in the habit of including operating costs in any discussion of printers, the problem would go away on its own.
You're probably familiar with the yellow EnergyGuide stickers that appear on all major appliances. You've doubtless seen the EPA mileage estimates on new car window stickers. Those are both examples of useful government regulations that require informational stickers to assist consumers in making informed purchases.
We need similar requirements levied on printer manufacturers. The manufacturers should have to include a prominent sticker which states the life expectancy of the toner/ink cartridges in pages and the estimated cost per page based on the MSRP of the manufacturer's cartridge. If the manufacturer does not publish an MSRP, then the sticker should be based on the dealer cost plus some fixed markup (representative of typical markup within the industry). The test would be equivalent to an EPA mileage test. It would use standard pages (e.g. X% coverage) and there might be a number for "B&W Text" and another for "Color Graphics" on each printer (with B&W printers having an "N/A" for the "Color Graphics").
Armed with that information, a consumer could make an intelligent, informed decision. It would do a lot to discourage deceptive pricing ($40 printers with -- surprise! -- $50 ink refills).
Oh, that's easy. Doctrine of first sale. If you really sold it to me, I can do what I want. If you are leasing it to me, that's another story because you and I agreed that you own the thing. If you don't care that I throw the thing in the trash all your other conditions are bogus.
Your "prebate", which is essentialy fair market value for your outrageously patented printer cartrige is a farce as well. The root problem here is that Lexmark can get patents on their toner cartridges that effectively keeps anyone else in the world from making them. The most "innovative" thing the company has done is add a lock out chip. By charging an outrageous amount for normal new cartidges that no one else may make and convincing purchasers that they don't really own the cartidge, Lexmark seeks to suck as much money from their users as possible by keeping them from doing what most normal people would do: put tonner into a perfectly usable part.
I will never buy or recomend a Lexmark printer. They have always been the worst on the market. I suspect it's because the company has such poor morals. The whole thing is dishonest and no on should do business with dishonest people.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Cheap inkjet printers that are nice do exist, just make sure you keep a few things in mind:
- If you can hold out until mid to late November, you'll see all kinds of holiday and discontinued model sales, through the end of the year.
- Assuming you get a color inkjet, you probably will want to look for a model with multiple ink cartridges, so you don't have to waste other colors when one color goes.
- Also, when you get it, make sure that in whatever operating system you use (be very careful you're not buying a "winprinter" if you need it for *NIX, unless you can get an emulation package) you set the driver to print in greyscale by default - most drivers set to color by default, and "black" is not black, but is a blend of the other inks...
When I bought my HP, it was for $50 from CompUSA, down from $99 - and that was in 1999. Later, I bought a Canon at a lesser discount from Fry's, in 2001, because it uses cartidges that are more expensive to replace all at once, but less expensive overall because I only refill the empty colors. I gave my sister the HP, which is still very nice (and in fact I miss the dedicated envelope slot). HP is so popular that the third party manufacturer prices are probably half the HP price. Canon alternatives, on the other hand, are around two thirds. I have to say, at $10 or $12 total per cartridge, the premium for Canon's name and warranty seems worth it.
And don't forget, no matter what brand of printer you eventually get, some office supply stores will give you free reams of paper or a small store credit for each empty cartridge you return, because most of these cartridges are specifically designed to be recycled and reused, to the point where the stores bank on making a profit returning these. PLEASE do this, not just for the free paper, but because of the environmental impact... which is another reason not to use Lexmark!
Get off my launchpad!