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U.S. Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Lexmark Case
wallykeyster writes " The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected Lexmark's petition for certiorari in its long and bitter battle against North Carolina-based Static Control Components (SCC). For those out of the loop on this one, Lexmark tried to lock in consumers and lock out competition by adding code to their printers and toner cartridges so that only Lexmark toners would work. SSC defeated their monopolist technology and began selling the off-brand chips to aftermarket toner cartridge makers. As discussed here earlier, in mid-February Lexmark was dealt a defeat by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, who denied Lexmark's request for a rehearing. Other related threads here, here, here, here, and here." The story is on the AP Newswire as well.
The specific clause from the DMCA is thus:
I'm not a lawyer (duh), but my reading of this says that the case of Compaq reverse engineering the PC BIOS would have also been legal, as long as they didn't publish their findings. (Which I believe that they did.)
It's important to understand that Congress intended the DMCA to protect digital anti-theft devices, not stop users from using their own software. The issue at hand is that the law was written before the full implications of computer technology and copyrights were fully understood. The bright side is that the actions of the MPAA, RIAA, and Adobe have gone quite a ways toward demonstrating how the market planned to abuse the law. While I doubt that we'll see the DMCA repealed, I seriously doubt we'll be seeing any new restrictions any time soon.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Let's hear it for the courts!
Not many times You'll ever be able to say that in your lifetimes.
Well, that's another tooth pulled from the DMCA. Unfortunately the process of judicial review is slow...
Perhaps someone could manufacture a disposable printer? Then, they dont have to worry about cartridges, etc.. In fact, I find it cheaper to buy a new printer than mess with cartriges (i.e. if I use the Manufacturer's cartridge - not after marktet fillers, etc).. Just a thought...
I don't see a reason this won't be uphelp, it doesn't seem reasonable that a company can say "you have to use my product x with my product y or use neither at all" and then try to quash a fair-market solution...
Granted, Apple says you have to use OSX on genuine or certified fake (wtf is that??) but if a solution comes up like PearPC does that mean that its against what Lexmark is fighting, or just violating the EULA?
It seems to me that everytime you buy 4 printer cartridges, you've already paid the price for a new printer (inkjets). So why not just build a printer with a really large cartridge size and then expect people to throw the entire printer away. Make the cartidge non-removable of course... but then again I am not in the printer business and last I heard HP is still chugging along...
Where's my free iPod!? Until then, I'll settle for a kiss...
Surely there is a better time for them to be ordering Italian pasta dishes?
Seriously, IANAL and I have no idea what this means.
For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
Of course, if you read the summary above, it was a District Court of Appeals, not the Supremes.... but that's probably asking too much of the slashdot audience, and it's not like you were the only one to make that mistake.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
The Supreme Court gets probably 100x more petitions per year than it could ever choose to hear. So being denied a hearing by the Supreme Court is not in itself particularly revealing about the merit of any one case.
However, you can be sure that when the court does take a case, that it involves all of the following: 1) a fundamental question of law, 2) that is being inconsistently decided by lower courts, and 3) that is ripe for adjudication by the Court (based on sufficient instances of the problem to guide them).
So, this particular case could have failed for any number of reasons. It probably does not involve any spectacular question of law -- the lower courts are well-equipped to decide the issue. So it is not so much a stinging defeat for this company, as it is a final forclosure of legal options in a matter that was already practically resolved.
Any lawyer who tells you that "we'll take this all the way to the Supreme Court" and expects to even get it heard, is full of it.
Of course, if you read the actual article and paid attention to the summary, it was the Supremes that denied the recent petition for a writ of centorari...but that's probably asking too much of someone who has nothing positive to add to the thread so instead decides to nitpick (and get it wrong to boot).
Was just about to reply to myself.
The summary conflicts with the headline and the article.
The Court of appeals rejected the appeal and the Supremes just refused to hear the case at all, ending it.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
Yeah, I'd agree with you if it weren't for that inconvenient first sentence in the actual news article...
"The United States Supreme Court has rejected Lexmark's petition for certiorari, upholding Static Control's position against the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and copyright issues raised by Lexmark in connection with Static Control's sale of Lexmark compatible chips.
This has been a test. If this had been an actual Sig, you would have been amused.
It's my printer, I want to use what ever ink I want.. With a chip that prevents me from using the type of products I want together with their products they make me feel like I am renting their printers under some very rude terms, not buying them with the rights that normally follow a purchase. It is almost as bad as a DVD player not wanting to play any kind of DVD you put into it.. oh wait, that IS the case with zone-enabled DVD players..
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
This will start us down a dangerous, slippery slope: first SSC will start making cartridges for all Lexmark and other printers. Then people will start using those $9 refill kits instead of buying new cartridges that cost O(new printer).
The next generation of our youth will think nothing of using free software instead of paying for the commercial kind. People may even start bicycling or - brace yourself - walking to work. Civilization will come to a halt.
</irony>
Every once in a while, my faith in The System gets a little boost.
sigs, as if you care.
There's nothing monopolistic about what Lexmark did. You people sure like to throw that term around though - it doesn't mean what you think it does.
Lets just hope this signals the ultimate end of putting chips to artificially limit lifetime and comaptability in ink cartridges.
HP do the same thing just to enable ludicrous overpricing on their ink cartridges. I'd love to see HP get forced to charge fair prices because of now legalised fair competition.
So, no arguing in other courts that there is an appeal to SCOTUS pending ...
Most of us here "get it". We've been following SCO vs IBM, and snacking on GrokLaw for a few years now, if we didn't have a legal background before.
Printer companies HATE aftermarket cartridges. Lexmark wants to kill that competition via lawsuits. HP does it a smarter (albeit similarly devious) way. Make your cartridges incompatible by constantly releasing new printer models with new cartridge interfaces. The latest HP inkjet models with the HP 94/95/96/97 cartriges are just the latest example of this tactic.
But eventually it will reach its end. And then the DMCA is gone. That's because your (the US) constitution in on your side. Indeed, the US clearly states that authors and inventors should only be granted "exclusive rights" if that promotes the Progress of Science and useful Arts. That's a good thing.
Now imagine you had a constitution which would grant intellectual property owners unconditional protection. Imagine, that instead of saying ... to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries. it just said intellectual property shall be protected period!
In that case, you'd be up shit creek without a paddle fighting the DMCA.
Now imagine you had a choice. Imagine you were asked to either accept such a flawed constitution or to reject it. Would you accept it?
Now, imagine that Bush threatened to resign if the constitution containing such a paragraph was rejected, saying in no uncertain terms that it would be a matter of common political decency to resign rather than be president of a country where intellectual property would not be protected 100%. Would you still reject the constitution? Or would you be cowed into accepting such a flawed document, for fear of losing your beloved president? Or would you rather rejoice at the prospect of having an easy way to ditch that village idiot ;-)?
In the next couple of months millions of EU citizens will be offered this choice. Millions of others won't be asked. If you are among the lucky ones that have a referendum, chose wisely. The EU constitution does indeed say, in article II.77.2, that intellectual property shall be protected. Nothing else. No limits to institutional greed. Some still think that it is in their best interest to say yes. Don't be fooled, and read the treaty before you sign it. The French and Dutch already have made up their mind.
Europe yes, but not with this constitution!
Say no to software patents.
But the fact is that any idiot that goes to his local PC store and buys a printer without doing some research first deserves all he/she gets, quite frankly.
In these days of the Internet, there is no excuse for getting ripped off as the number of sites out there reviewing hardware, software, movies, CDs, etc, etc, means that it's quite easy to get good information prior to making any purchase. So if you've bought a printer without researching the prices of cartridges and the quality/prices of third-party cartridges, that's your fault.
The fact is that photo-printing to any reasonable quality is *hugely expensive* on a home use printer & PC combination and it's still much cheaper to drop a CD into a shop or a memory card into a machine and get the photos printed that way. Even much cheaper third party cartridges suffer from quality issues - it really is a case of "you get what you pay for".
No, I'm not justifying Lexmark's price-rigging, I bought one of their printers once and never will again unless their prices for cartridges come down.
But ignorance is no excuse - if the majority of people are too stupid to see beyond the glossy adverts that they are constantly bombarded with, then more fool them.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
As the submitter, I'm curious where you see conflict. I'm not above making mistakes, and I've certainly had the editors mangle my submissions, but I don't see anything wrong with this one.
Printer companies HATE aftermarket cartridges.
it ain't just printer makers. car makers hate aftermarket parts makers too. hell, just about any manufacturer hates aftermarket parts makers. it cuts into their bussiness.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
I also believe that while they declined to hear Lexmark today, they will take a similar case sometime in the next decade, likely after multiple Appellate courts establish inconsistent positions on the subject.
Happy goldfish bowl to you.
Ahhh, you're thinking of it the wrong way.
When they refuse to hear it, what they're really doing is saying: "Biznotch you KNOW you ain't got no case, so don't be frontin here or we'll be throwing down a majority opinion that yo punk ass needs some compton air conditionin. Fo shizzle."
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
NEVER BUY A LEXMARK!
in addition to being an inferior printer, they also don't fly very well. i threw mine out of our 3rd story window and was quite dissapointed by its aerodynamics.
--- blackironprison, where ignorance is bliss....
Who cares about Lexmark. If you don't want to use their monopolistic machines, buy another brand. It's called free market, deal with it. Plus, Lexmark machines aren't that great to begin with. There are better brands on the market.
I say, have the courts leave Lexmark alone. After all, it's only toner, folks.
Health Insurance Quotes
Many new printers come with half filled ink carts. "To stop possible ink spillage that could damage the printer." Granted its just another money grab. But wanted to let you know before you blew a bunch o cash on new printers.
The recent medical marijuana decision was interesting because of the dissenters.
O'Connor, Rehnquist and Thomas dissented on the ground of States Rights.
The others, including Scalia(!) ruled that medical marijuana (grown for one's self, in one's home, not taken out of state) can be regulated under the Interstate Commerce Clause.
Just thought it was an interesting side note, given the parent post.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
HP does it a smarter (albeit similarly devious) way. Make your cartridges incompatible by constantly releasing new printer models with new cartridge interfaces.
All that does is delays the onset of generic competition. Unless they put serious levels of obfuscation into the cartridges (smartcards with challenge/response designed to resist reverse-engineering, for instance) it won't take long to duplicate any design. Sure, the generic company now has to support 100 models of cartridges instead of 10, but that works against HP as well. If HP has to raise their prices to support all those cartridges, then the generic companies can raise their prices to recover their costs and not lose market share. The only result of HPs decision would be more people buying from Epson since the entire cartridge market is cheaper (unless Epson does the same thing).
Unless they want to spend $40 per cartridge on smartcard technology, there are only so many limits manfuacturers can put on reverse-engineering. It is always cheaper to copy something than it is to design in the first place. Even smartcards can be defeated - they're made of matter and so they can be taken apart by somebody with sufficient determination...
Look at the posts yesterday about DVD Decrypter being shut-down...then compare that the supreme court not hearing this case on Lexmark's behalf. It seems that DVD Decrypter isn't even as bad as SSC, but they've been bullied literally to death. SSC found a way to "crack" Lexmark's trade secret, and then sold it off to Lexmark competitors. How can that not stand up, but "some company" can attack on the grounds of DRM violation?
The SCOTUS refusing to hear this appeal has good and bad aspects. On the one hand Lexmark's abuse of the DMCA is at an end. On the other hand, the SCOTUS did not undertake a full review of the case and rule on the constitutionality of the issues at hand with respect to that fundamentally deficient law.
So far so good, I guess. They could have reviewed the case and said, "Oh yeah, you can use the DMCA to do that!"
Last time I checked, however, the cartridges that came with my printer held half or less what the regular cartridges did, making it cheapere to buy cartridges.
hawk
So basically lexmark didn't buy off enough people to get their way is what this is saying? Because this lawsuit has just as much merit as every other one that "went down without a fight".
> Did you even bother to read the article?
Yes, Lexmark wants to change a ruling.
> The Supreme Court has refused to hear the case.
So the previous ruling, against Lexmark, stands.
> Therefore no action will be taken against Lexmark. Therefore their monopoly on
> the cartridges for their own printers will not be ended.
Non-sequitur - the monopoly remains ended.
That means they already lost in the lower court, and were refused a rehearing. Hell, Lexmark lost at every step of the way! This means the monopoly has ended; action has been taken, or at least handed down pending the end of appeals (e.g. now).
How long have you been not reading the articles? (Hell, not reading the summary, either!)Do you like Japanese imports?
HP does it a smarter (albeit similarly devious) way. Make your cartridges incompatible by constantly releasing new printer models with new cartridge interfaces. The latest HP inkjet models with the HP 94/95/96/97 cartriges are just the latest example of this tactic.
The big thing I noticed is my HP 95 printer uses a $60 color cart ($35 for the half full economy version) where my HP722c uses a 2 pack color cart ($43) for the same size cart. Needless to say, their old printer is competiting with the new printer. For web pages, Yahoo maps and other color printing, I use the 722, not the 950. The newer 950 sits in a box on the shelf. It's just a spare in case the 722 dies.
HP tried a public relations campaign by touting how much further the 78 cartridge prints by advertising the page count. I did my homework. I found the 722c printer's cartridge was listed by page count at 15% color page coverage.
The 950's color cart would print many more pages.. but at 5% color page coverage. They did not do a page count for both cartridges using the same amount of color printing per page! Needless to say, if I did a simple assumption that if the 722's printer cart did 5% coverage instead of 15% coverage I would get 3X more pages printed for my estimate. Then the comparison fell apart. The 722 printer prints more color pages using less ink from a cartridge at less than half the price.
I'll not buy another color printer until I have the hard numbers on estimated cart yield, cost per cart, and ultimately the cost/page at X percent color coverage.
My wife bought a Dell computer. It came with a Dell all in one printer. The carts are about 1/4 the size of the HP carts. The volume and estimated page yield are not stated anywhere. Needless to say, when it ran out of ink, it became a Goodwill item. I did not let the wife order ink. My laser and inkjet printers are networked. The Hawking printservers I use are about the same price as a HP cart.
The truth shall set you free!
That is interesting. I wonder if somehow this ruling could help aftermarket companies sell scan tools that can speak the individual lingo of each car manufacturer. There are maintenance tasks which cannot be performed properly without that manufacturer's diagnostic computer which no individual car owner could ever hope to have.
Some companies sell tools that can read a trivial subset of the vehicle's sensors, but I'm not aware of any that actually instruct components of the vehicle to do things (such as control the throttle during diagnostics, instruct the transmission to cycle for changing the fluid, etc..).
I hope the inventor of the loss leading business model is roasting simultaneously in all the circles of Dante's inferno. Espcially the guy who started the damn give away the razor and overcharge for the blades crap. He should be given the worlds worst case of acne, forced to shave and splace lemon juice on for aftershave.
Why in gods name can't the printer companies just make a freakin printer, charge a reasonable profit for their effort and do the same with replacement ink. If they would do that there wouldn't BE any aftermarket ink war. The barrier of entry to full printer hardware market is far steeper than that to making knockoff ink well cartridges. But no... they have to keep chasing the dream of controling their market and forcing people into the 1000% mark up replacement ink in return for being able to buy at cost or mildly discounted hardware. Hell, if they would simply reduce their attempted price jack back to just merely astromical they could tighten the belts of the aftermarket crowd to the point it might squeeze them out.
Do they not realize the more absurd their markup the more room and incentive to operate they give the aftermarket crowd ? The higher they charge over the intrinsic value of the constituent parts the more money the aftermarkets can charge to re-coup a reverse engineering investment. In the end it just becomes corporate market competition with a sweetspot that is NOT in the consumers best intrest which is what market competition is supposed to be for in the first damn place.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
Has anybody organized a boycott of Lexmark due to their use of these anti-competitive and anti-consumer policies?
It's hard to boycott Lexmark when their printers are sold under so many other names. And it's even harder to boycott something you didn't buy in the first place. Often times the Lexmark is the free printer you get with your PC. Other times, the computer would cost more without the printer.
It's harder for the consumer to know they are getting a bad deal with that free printer. After all the cost of the lexmark cartrige is about the same as HP, just a thimble full of ink.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
I am disappointed that I will not be able to boycott Lexmark printers -- I already won't buy Lexmark because I think that they are pieces of shit.
Why in gods name can't the printer companies just make a freakin printer, charge a reasonable profit for their effort and do the same with replacement ink.
Because they don't make enough money that way. Yes, a company could come along and do that, and charge a fair price for ink cartridges. The aftermarket ones likely wouldn't exist for that printer. But at the consumer end, most people look at the price of the printer itself. Considering ongoing costs is very much a niche corner of the market. At the business end, many printers aren't sold at all, they're leased - the company gets the printer and all the toner they can eat "free" - but they pay a fixed rate per page.
The only way you'll ever get this done is to legislate it. Never gonna happen.
A lot of stuff isn't terribly complicated - mostly practice, practice, practice.
The latest HP inkjet models with the HP 94/95/96/97 cartriges are just the latest example of this tactic.
I'm not up on current HPs. I know that the HP 94 black has a yield of 450p and will fit into printers that also accept the HP 96 with an 800p yield. What I don't know is if the lower priced printers that say the replacement ink is HP 94 will accept the 96 black.
Does HPs lock the lower end printers to the cart that has a higher cost per page?
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
From the /. story: "The story is on the AP Newswire as well.".
The Associated Press may have a story along these lines, but the link currently pointed to by Slashdot will not take you to that story. That link, copied from /.'s front page, takes the reader to a Static Control Components press release which happens to be carried on Yahoo! (a site that also happens to carry copies of AP wire stories).
Digital Citizen
Now, imagine that Bush threatened to resign if the constitution containing [a paragraph granting blanket authority to enforce monopolies on works of authorship and inventions] was rejected, saying in no uncertain terms that it would be a matter of common political decency to resign rather than be president of a country where intellectual property would not be protected 100%. [A.] Would you still reject the constitution? Or [B.] would you be cowed into accepting such a flawed document, for fear of losing your beloved president? Or [C.] would you rather rejoice at the prospect of having an easy way to ditch that village idiot ;-)?
Don't blame me; I voted for Badnarik and every other Libertarian on the ticket in Allen County, Indiana, in 2004. Therefore, I'd choose C, ousting President Bush and his administration.
It's called free market, deal with it.
Many people don't choose to buy Lexmark, they get them for free. More don't know they have a Lexmark, they are branded Dell or whatever. They don't understand each time they spend $26.99 on black 10ml of black they are spending USD $1,0217.35 a gal on ink. Say what you want about HP, but the 21ml 800p #96 cart is $30 or there and abouts of $5400/gal. The Canon Bci3eBK at $13.99 is 25ml, but claims only a 500p count, and squeeks in at $2118.42/gal.
The problem is awareness.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
The Supreme court did not judge this case on its merits. Lexmark missed the filing deadline by one day. Whether you agree with the result or not, they never had a chance once the midnight bell struck. Someone, somewhere (or, more likely, someoneS) is not sleeping well tonight. Or even this month.
...if I wanted to read garbage like that, I'd go to \.
So I guess you wouln't try to do a tracheotomy with a pen knife and a ballpoint in an emergency - better to let the poor sod die?
A lot of stuff isn't terribly complicated - mostly practice, practice, practice.
Um... You can practice on his throat. I'll just be waiting over here...
"This calls for a very special blend of psychology and extreme violence" - Vyvyan "The Young Ones"
Nothing to see here... move on... I'm just confused, confused, confused..... this has obviously been a bad article for me... you're fine.
:)
Sorry.
I'm not above admitting when I'm wrong. Just mostly misread this one, apparently twice... I swear I remember the summary title and first line different the first time I read it to now... but apparently not.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
HP comes out with an array of new cartridges for its printers. New HP inkjets have 4 20$ cartridges to purchase! And their low-end models break on the first paper jam.
I'm not up on HPs, but I rather thought that the gray cart was optional. Besides, this is roughly equal to Epson with their 6 color printers.
To go with your theme. The Epsons are designed with a diaper and software that blinks "need service" at what I would estimate as one year, requiring a $60 service call. Above average users get a head clog get a free diaper change or free replacement with ink.
I am presently least offended by HP can Canon.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Your DeskJet 722c printer uses the HP 23 color cartridge. It has 30 ml of ink and has a retail price of $34.99. This is about $1.17 per milliliter of ink. (Twinpack available for $53.99, $0.90 per ml.)
The DeskJet 950c printer uses the HP 78 cartridge. The large capacity version of this cartridge has 38 ml of ink at a price of $53.99, which is $1.42 per ml. (The low-capacity 78 cartridge is $34.99 for 19 ml, for an even worse $1.84 per ml.)
HP later came out with the HP 57 ink cartridge. It is $34.99 for 17 ml of ink, a cost of $2.06 per ml. (The 57 twinpack is $62.99, $1.85 per ml.)
HP's newest color cartridge is the HP 95/97 cartridge. The 95 cartridge is $24.99 for 7 ml of ink, which is an astounding $3.57 per ml!
You can also get the HP 97 "Large" cartridge, which is $34.99 for 14 ml of ink. This comes in at $2.50 per ml. (HP 97 twinpack is $62.99, $2.25 per ml.)
Funny that a TWINPACK of the largest volume cartridge gives you 28 ml of ink, which is just UNDER what one HP 23 color cartridge gave you!
For those out of the loop on this one, Lexmark tried to lock in consumers and lock out competition by adding code to their printers and toner cartridges so that only Lexmark toners would work.
Every slashdot article should have a nice sentence like this telling us what the story is about.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Funny that a TWINPACK of the largest volume cartridge gives you 28 ml of ink, which is just UNDER what one HP 23 color cartridge gave you!
That's exactly why I still use the 722c printer with the 23 cartridge twin pack and not a newer printer.
The truth shall set you free!
Yay, the three least relevant justices on the USSC managed to be *in the minority* in making the most obviously correct determination, perhaps in the history of the US. Even the "strict constructionist" forgot what the words "among" and "commerce" meant.
Even better, the majority only managed to come up with *three pages* of dribble, containing trite, memorable fallacies like the one below, to justify their power-grab.
"If Congress decides that the 'total incidence' of a practice poses a threat to a national market, it may regulate the entire class."
"production of the commodity meant for home consumption, be it wheat or marijuana, has a substantial effect on supply and demand in the national market for that commodity."
(emphasis mine)
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
This idea of flying printers got me to thinking about the waste disposal issues of so many useless parts accumulating.
In general, what to do with a printer with cartridges that cost almost the same price as the printer, are shipped less than half full, that dry out if you let them sit for a few days (something the tech support doesn't give you any clue how to fix) leave streaks and never quite match the color tone of the image and which resist all attempts at using third party ink? Hmm.
Maybe with some mods it could be used:
Just a few to get you started.