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Copyright Office Rules Against Lexmark
SparkyTWP writes "'The United States Copyright Office has ruled in favour of Static Control Components, of Sanford, N.C., saying that its microchips do not contravene the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.' This was in regard to SCC making microchips that imitated Lexmark's in remanufactured printer cartridges. It appears Lexmark won't be able to do anything about third-party cartridges."
Does anyone know if Lexmark has any legal recourse beyond this ruling? Can they appeal somewhere? Or is this the done deal?
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Linuxprinting.org has a vendor score card to show you which vendors deserve yor support.
Their recommendation (and HP's work writing opensource drivers that support all the features of their printers) was the reason that I purchased a PhotoSmart 7260 from HP and I haven't regretted it - even the integrated card reader works.
Not surprisingly they rate Lexmark inkjet printers as useless.
Beep beep.
the margin on branded cartridges is higher for both the manufacturer and for the store, so i doubt generics will have much of a chance of making it into a large store, with the exception of bestbuy which sells basix ink (which is a bestbuy brand, and sucks immense donkeynards).
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
No they can't. With the DMCA out of the way for now, and disregarding patents, the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Improvement Act prohibits a manufacturer from conditioning a product's warranty on use of other products identified by trademark unless the manufacturer can prove that the off-brand product damaged the product under warranty.
Will I retire or break 10K?
What the inclusion of third party cartridge resellers into the market place does is cause competition in the sale of a specific consumable (toner), and nothing more. Sure, it is going to cut into profits, but printer manufacturers have a very easy way of fighting back: if you use third party consumables, you void your warranty. And this is a perfectly reasonable tactic, because you can't expect a printer manufacturer to insure a product that is using components who's quality they have no way of controlling. And trust me, when it costs $450 dollars just to have a printer tech take a look at your machine, no one is going to willingly void their warranty.
Here's SCC's webpage on the case. They have a Press Release (pdf) and a link to the official ruling site (but I don't see the ruling there yet).
I've been watching this case closely, and I'm glad it's been thrown out like the Garage door opener case!
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Relevant text of the statute from an off-brand inkjet ink manufacturer, quoting 15 USC 2302:
Where again is it limited to motor vehicles?
Will I retire or break 10K?
This can only be a good thing. Not only does it put Lexmark in their place, but it also tells other companies that they can't cloak their anticompetitive practices behind the DMCA.
There was a similar case where the Chamberlain Group, a garage door opener manufacturer, sued Skylink Technologies over a universal garage door opener using the DMCA by saying that the program that interpreted the signals from the garage door remote was being exploited by Skylink, and thus fell under the circumvention article in the DMCA. Skylink has won this case. The judgement is here.
-R
Furthermore, with a lot of our copiers, we have to go through the name-brand dealers or it voids the warranties and service contracts on our machines
IANAL but isn't that illegal?
Doing a quick search: Magnuson-Moss Warranty Improvement Act - United States Code Annotated - Title 15 Commerce And Trade - Chapter 50 - 2302
http://www.balorn.net/
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Not quite like that, but the same idea. I believe it's Cannon that makes several higher end ink jet printers which use very cheap ink cartridges. Instead of the print head being part of the ink cartridge, it's part of the printer. The ink cartridges are just plastic tubs of ink, and are quite reasonably priced. They're still not easily refillable, but they're cheap enough that it doesn't matter so much.
Refilling is not a panacea for the high cost of cartridges. True competition for cartridges, thus lower prices for consumers, is a much better solution. The ruling for SCC is very good news.
>Patent = protection for 17 years.
17 years is so 20th century. Patents filed after 8Jun95 are given a term of 20yrs from the effective date of filing.
This was done to normalize patent terms with other countries. One side effect is that it also nixed Lemulson-type "submarine" patents.
> What fraction of that $740 profit do you think is generated by printer
> cartridges versus printers?
I'd have to say the order from most to least profitable is as such:
1) laser printers
2) ink jet ink
3) toner ink
4) ink jet printers
Oh yea, the gap between #1 and all the others is about tripple as well.
I'm sure they will feel it, but it wont be the worst thing to happen to HP.
When you need a color laser that can photocopy and print from the network, a $10k HP wont compare to the inkjet market/problems at all.
It didn't make a judicial decision. It actual is an administrative decision. I'm not completely up on how the DMCA works, but I believe the Copyright office has the responsibility to give its interpretation of new ways the law is being used. This could be taken up with a federal court and the judge could decide differently and either side could appeal, as in a normal law case.
It is dangerous to be right on a subject on which the established authorities are wrong. - Voltaire
One might argue that the 8 1/2 x 11 printers are simply "ink holders" at this point. The Canon printer I have has ink reservoirs, with a permanent head set, and I refill with the slightly messy ink refill kits at Price Club/Costco for $15 for an ink set on the order of 8 oz. per color. Don't get much cheaper than that!
Those HP printer cartridges can push a liter of ink through the heads before the heads need servicing. Not 21 ml!!!!!
Since we are talking inks, some handy tips:
- We cleaned the HP cartridge heads all the time with just wet paper towels (not the super-soft ones that disintegrate), using purified water, like what you'd put in a steam iron.
- Those refill kits with the needles can damage the foil pouch inside, so insert slowly.
- There is a proprietary technique of refilling the HP cartridges without having a ball bearing rattling around inside; I don't know the trick personally, but it has to do with creating a vacuum somewhere.
- Printer ink comes off excellently with a mixture of water and bleach. Straight bleach and your hands corrode. There's also a paste you can buy, but it is far from easy to find, nor is it cheap.
- Most printers do a power-up "dance" as I like to call it, before they can print. This squirts ink out into a sponge, assumedly to keep the heads clean. If your ink heads cap nicely on a rubber boot, they don't dry out. I've noticed HP printers have a drain/breathe hole in their boots, which seems to circumvent this purpose somewhat.
The main difference between consumer inks (as in those intended for mostly sheets of paper, not odd materials like plastic of vinyl or cloth) comes from print compatibility, not chemistry. Your printer has an ink "profile" which basically says "lay down this much ink for this color, on this kind of paper." There's a lot of math and some scientific measurement to create these profiles, but that's why refill kits sometimes produce pages which puddle a bit, or the color is slightly off. Buy a printer that takes profiles from external files, such as my beloved Canon S820 does. Chances are, you will run with the same crowd that makes these printers, and has websites with profiles for download, etc.Ah, I've finally found it. The Copyright Office did not issue a new rule to cover the SCC case. Instead, it issued an opinion (in response to SCC's petition) that a new exemption rule was not necessary because section 1201(f) of the DMCA already allowed such an exemption. After having read it myself, I understand. The text of section 1201(f)(2) is: "Notwithstanding the provisions of subsections (a)(2) and (b), a person may develop and employ technological means to circumvent a technological measure, or to circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure, in order to enable the identification and analysis under paragraph (1), or for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, if such means are necessary to achieve such interoperability, to the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement under this title. " So the Copyright Office didn't alter any rules for the SCC case; it just said that the requested rule already existed.
To form a sharp edge, the metal tapers down very narrow. This very narrow edge gets bent out of shape.