HP Launches Ink Patent Violation Manhunt

BlueCup writes to tell us that Hewlett-Packard has deployed a large team consisting of many scientists and many more lawyers looking for possible ink patent infringement. With more than 4,000 patents on their ink formulations and cartridge design and a market share of more than 50 percent in the US HP depends heavily on the sale of ink to make profit after sometimes selling their printers at a loss in order to lock in the ink resale.

Comments

it's come to this for HP

[yagu]

So, now HP needs to chase down violators to protect itself. If only HP had continued to pay attention to quality, maybe HP would not need to worry about this kind of activity.

Fifteen years ago, the only brand of printer I would buy was HP. Partly because HP was on point, but also because I'd always associated HP with quality as job one (actually, I guess that was supposed to be Ford). HP calculators, printers, electrical instruments, all quality products for years I'd faithfully used with trust.

Then came the second HP printer I'd ever bought, a deskjet, and I don't remember its model number. I do remember it suddenly either would pick up no sheets of paper for printing, or pick up 2 or 3 at a time. The fix?

I give HP credit, they did offer a fix. But it involved a scary piece of software and an even scarier piece of hardware with steel wool pads (I'm not kidding) you had to insert into the feed rollers -- and when all was done, you had a better performing (not perfect) printer and a heck of a mess to clean up. (Though I did get a free dental appointment once by bringing in my contraption and applying the HP "fix" to their HP printer!)

An anomaly?, a tiny blip on the radar? Nope. The next printer I bought, also HP Deskjet, fell apart so many times because of cheap plastic assembly I became an expert in the insides of the machine.

Still, I faithfully recommended HP printers to friends and family, but there were a disturbingly large and consistent number of "incidents" with these new printers. They were either balky in their performance, had ink problems, were virtually impossible to install, or keep installed. I gave up on HP about three or four years ago. Sadly, it's tinged my opinion of HP in general, from HP-UX, to HP-41X RPN calculators, probably unfairly since I think they still make some of the best electronics.

HP decided to go the route of making money on their printer ink, and sell their printers sometimes below cost -- that's kind of the disposable razor idea -- not necessarily a bad idea, but if it comes at the sacrifice of making reliable printers, I'm out.

HP's obsession with cost cutting, chasing down patent cheaters, etc., these are not the signatures of a class technology company.

Re:it's come to this for HP

[gstoddart]

So, now HP needs to chase down violators to protect itself. If only HP had continued to pay attention to quality, maybe HP would not need to worry about this kind of activity.

Well, given that 80% of their $5.6 billion in operating profit (from TFA) is derived from ink and toner, they are not going to allow it to slip away. Otherwise they could potentially lose about $4bn in profit.

I'm not defending it, cause I don't agree with it. But they're not going to let that bone go any time soon.

Cheers.

This business model leads to bizarre situations

[John Jorsett]

A friend of mine recently discovered that it was cheaper to buy her same model printer on sale than to buy a replacement cartridge for her existing printer. She couldn't bring herself to toss a perfectly good printer just to get the cartridge cheaper, but the temptation was there. I'll bet many other people don't have the same compunctions about this sort of waste.

Re:This business model leads to bizarre situations

[frieked]

Read the fine print... most of those cheapo printers usually only come with half-capacity ink cartridges as 1: a means of cutting costs and 2: to prevent people who are willing to just toss the perfectly good printer just because of cheaper cartridge costs.