Slashdot Mirror
Refilling Ink Cartridges Now a Crime?
Eric Smith writes "The Ninth Circuit has created box-wrap patent licenses. Now the label on the box that says "single use only" is given force of law, and if you refill the cartridge you are liable for patent infringement."
So can I still fill up used bottled water bottles with my tap water if it is labled '1 liter'?
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
Conservatives have been screaming for about a decade about hot the 9th circuit is insane.
Now that one of their decisions will effect soccer moms and art students, maybe something will be done about it.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Sure, but what if it is labelled "spring water"? Then if the manufacturer holds any patents on the product (which may or may not be related to the type of water in it), they can claim that your refilling the bottle with tap water infringes their patent because you violated the box-wrap license.
If the cartridge was not my property, I could understand this ruling. It's their property and I'm only borrowing it. However, in this case, It's my property. If I choose to transfer a liquid that I own from a container that I own into another container that I own, that's nobody's business but mine. But if I destroy my printer because my refilled cartridge is not "up to specs," then it's also my fault.
Isn't this a monopolistic or ogopolistic practice which is suppose to be illegal? Isn't this ruining competition by putting up artificial barriers-of-entry for the printing cartridge market? If some smart company decides to make ink refills, that increases competition which provides us end-user consumers more choices, better quality, and lower prices.
Bah, I've already lost all hope for the U.S. from top to bottom. Watch the re-release of THX-1138. That's what we've become. "Buy, consume, buy more, consume more, take your drugs, beware of an interval-overdose."
Easy, they saw that they can get away with software so they will press along with hardware as far as they can get.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
How exactly does refilling a cartridge infringe on Lexmark's patents? Do they have a patent on refilling ink cartridges? Perhaps they have a patent on "Saving money by not paying exorbitant fees to Lexmark every time your ink runs low"?
The 9th Circuit could have just been honest and said that "refilling ink cartridges infringes on Lexmark's right to make money off you and we clearly can't have that now, can we".
In this era of population explosion, global resource exploitation, potential global warming, etc., it is insanity to intentionally dictate that easily re-used items be turned into "single-use" consumables that thus fill landfills on one end of the chain while consuming additional resources and energy for the manufacture of identical new items (and packaging, too) at the other end of the chain-- all when the existing item(s)are perfectly fine and completely functional.
This is the insanity of capitalism: we are running out of oil; we are filling the atmosphere with greenhouse gasses as the result of our energy use; we are clear-cutting; we are running out of easily habitable (without extra energy consumption for climate management, water movement, etc.) space; and yet the only measure with which we as a society are concerned is the measure of capital and the individual "freedom" to acquire it (by and large a lie propagated by those who hold it-- how many billionaries are in your family?), even as we consume ourselves into a planetary grave.
It's not just conceptually consumable items like ink cartridges that could easily be re-used; it's even big-ticket items like cell phones and automobiles--millions of them end up in landfills each year while they're still perfectly good, either because they're artificially locked/behavior-controlled or because manufacturers refuse to continue to support them so that they can sell new models to individuals who demand them in part after succumbing to the forces of marketplace psychology in advertising and in part because of the real social (and thus capital) benefits that such appearances (i.e. a new auto; a new cell phone) provide as a result of the marketplace.
The "marketplace" is merely the aggregate of individual greed and it mechanistically ignores problems that any single individual feels to be "bigger than themself" and their own desires. If you let the "marketplace" dictate environmental and social policy, you are asking for a system that (like its component individuals) completely ignores the realities of the very survival of our species in favor of giving everyone a better-tasting cola in the run-up to the planetary apocalypse.
It is time to stop capitalism and corporatism now.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Christ, does *every* Slashdot headline have to be misleading and sesationalistic?
To answer the question in the headline: No, it's not illegal to refill your Lexmark ink cartridges. What's illegal is for a company to buy up empty "one-use" cartridges, fill them back up, and resell them.
Whether it was warranted for the court to uphold this or not, the decision does not mean what the Slashdot editors would like you to believe.
Slashdot: News for the Gullible. Stuff that insults your intelligence.
Every time something crazy comes out such as this I pray for more of the same.
The only way deep change will come about is when people are told that they can't modify their cars with non-GM parts, when people are told that they can only wear nike shoes with nike pants, when people are prohibited from buying an oral B tooth brush with some Crest toothpaste unless they sign a contract where they promises not to use the 2 products together.
Let the crazy come cause the crazy can't stay, they can just hassle us for a while.
I mod everyone down who says "I'll get modded down for this." I hate to disappoint.
No.
Slashdot, the Fox News of Patents, has vaguely summarized a short article and omitted details that would significantly diminish the outlandish headline.
You can infinge every patent in the world so long as you do it for your own purposes. However, you cannot do it for business. There's nothing in the article OR the licensing agreement that describes what you can or cannot do with the printer cartridge for personal use. Be creative.
This judgement says that you cannot engage in the business of refilling "one use only" cartridges, which apparently includes selling your used cartridges back to a refilling company. I personally find that bizarre, because you could easily "sell your junk" to a third party, who "sells his filtered junk" to a cartridge refilling company, and enforcing this judgement would be nigh impossible. Regardless, this has nothing to do with how you use or refill your printer cartridges - for personal use.
Seems like a stupid business model. Why not just say "we charge you full price, but if you bring the cartridge back when you are done with it, we'll give you a $30 rebate on the next cartridge"? That would accomplish the same purpose, but would give the customer an incentive to cooperate, rather than creating a situation where Lexmark feels some weird obligation to sue the customer for not complying.
What have I been telling you people for at least the last ten years? Why haven't you been paying attention?
To the apologists who claim that a contract is created between Lexmark and the purchaser, I ask: Where is the informed disclosure? Where is the manifestation of informed assent? Where are the signed copies of the "contract"?
The reason retail markets are so valuable is because a regular set of rules that is common to all states governs how transactions in the market take place. This regularity is what enables an accelerated transfer of goods and services, which lets money flow around the economy that much faster, benefiting everyone. If you want special terms or conditions you, by definition, are not trading in a retail market. For you to sell your goods in a retail venue is therefore, at best, misleading ("bait-and-switch," anyone?).
If you want special terms and conditions, get a signed contract. Oh, that's too much trouble? Well, tough shit. And if you try sneaking a contract in under the radar, well, that doesn't prove you have any kind of rights or moral authority, all it proves is you're sneaky.
This is a crap decision, following on twenty years of previous crap decisions (ProCD vs. Zeidenberg being but one of them).
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
"Getting down to ownership; if I buy something, I guess it's not really mine, eh?"
only if you let them get away with this criminal behavior.
we need to stop baa-baaing and get some tar and feathers and run these bitches out of town. or at the least, revoke their business licenses.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
Which contractual agreement is that? I didn't sign anything, or even tacitly agree to any terms.
Now if they sold the catridges with a deal whereby if you return them to Lexmark you get a rebate, then that's fine, but this so-called "prebate" has (had) no basis in law and was just Lexmark relying on people being well behaved and returning the cartridges.
Opening a box that you own is not a promise.
Actually, people talk all the time about "voting with your wallet" and all that but that rarely works unless you can create a groundswell of public support that even a Presidential candidate would envy. And it only works for a while because we have short memories. Short of that, there are only a couple of tried-and-true methods that can be used to influence corporate behavior: lawsuits, and public embarrassment. Those two are often intertwined.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
This presumes that there will always be an option, and that they will continue to also offer their products without the restrictive "contracts", but nothing obligates them to do so.
I have no problem with Lexmark's "prebate" program per se. I have an issue with allowing them to print some mumbo-jumbo on the side of the box, and then call that a legal, enforcable contract. If their program were a normal, after-the-fact rebate, or if one had to sign a contract at the cash register to get the discount, I would have no problem with that being legal. (Although I suspect signing contracts to get the discount would scare a lot of people off.)
ACRA (the company that filed suit) contended, among other things, that the printing on the box could not be construed as a legal contract. The court said it could. I consider this another step down the slippery slope of eroding consumer rights with more and more restrictive "contracts" and "licenses" for things that used to be simple purchases.
At this rate, soon you won't be able to own anything.
However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. -- Winston Churchill
.....The type found in an ELUA is what's called a "Contract of Adhesion"......
A mouse click EULA or any other agreement is only enforceable if it can be proved WHO the parties thereto are. Nobody can ever prove in court WHO clicks a mouse or opened a package. Also the person cannot be a minor who is not allowed to enter into any kind of legally binding contract. All those "agreements" are not worth the paper they are printed on when push comes to shove in a court case. Just because a package was opened or a mouse was clicked does NOT establish the identity of BOTH parties. There cannot be an agreement unless it can be proved WHO is agreeing to what and that has to be at least TWO parties. I'd like to see anyone prove the identity of a mouse clicker or package ripper unambiguously. That is why in important agreements we have things notarized or at the very least affirmed with a written signature.
All theory is gray
Because the whole thing is just a pretense to keep the user from giving the empties to the companies that refill them. They are purposely trying to form a contract with the cartridge buyer in order to be able to go after the refillers for "inducing" the buyer into violating the contract.
It seems pretty unfair to hold the 3rd party to the terms of a rebate contract they never saw, didn't agree to, and are not a part of does it?
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.