Slashdot Mirror
Why You Should Care About the Supreme Court Case On Toner Cartridges (consumerist.com)
rmdingler quotes a report from Consumerist: A corporate squabble over printer toner cartridges doesn't sound particularly glamorous, and the phrase "patent exhaustion" is probably already causing your eyes to glaze over. However, these otherwise boring topics are the crux of a Supreme Court case that will answer a question with far-reaching impact for all consumers: Can a company that sold you something use its patent on that product to control how you choose to use after you buy it? The case in question is Impression Products, Inc v Lexmark International, Inc, came before the nation's highest court on Tuesday. Here's the background: Lexmark makes printers. Printers need toner in order to print, and Lexmark also happens to sell toner. Then there's Impression Products, a third-party company makes and refills toner cartridges for use in printers, including Lexmark's. Lexmark, however, doesn't want that; if you use third-party toner cartridges, that's money that Lexmark doesn't make. So it sued, which brings us to the legal chain that ended up at the Supreme Court. In an effort to keep others from getting a piece of that sweet toner revenue, Lexmark turned to its patents: The company began selling printer cartridges with a notice on the package forbidding reuse or transfer to third parties. Then, when a third-party -- like Impression -- came around reselling or recycling the cartridges, Lexmark could accuse them of patent infringement. So far the courts have sided with Lexmark, ruling that Impression was using Lexmark's patented technology in an unauthorized way. The Supreme Court is Impression's last avenue of appeal. The question before the Supreme Court isn't one of "can Lexmark patent this?" Because Lexmark can, and has. The question is, rather: Can patent exhaustion still be a thing, or does the original manufacturer get to keep having the final say in what you and others can do with the product? Kate Cox notes via Consumerist that the Supreme Court ruling is still likely months away. However, she has provided a link to the transcript of this week's oral arguments (PDF) in her report and has dissected it to see which way the justices are leaning on the issue.
If I had my way, you could patent whatever you like about the device, but third-party options for consumables must be available and their use not deliberately prevented or impaired by the device.
Excuse me? What have they patented exactly? A sticker saying "Do not remove"? Some software on the chip? And this invalidates my rights to buy, install, or use aftermarket parts or services because..... of.... what clause in patent law exactly?
Is the author high, or trying to sneak in support for an invalid patent, or just plain confused? Patents affect who can make a product. Not the sale or use of the item after the initial manufactures sale. What clusterfuck corrosion of the rule of law have the patent lawyers hoisted on the body politic this time?
Hi. I'm European. I love Obamacare even though I don't understand it. But it has Obama in it and I would love to suck his dick.
Oh look. An american saying his european trying to insult everyone. Lame.
And further down...
So does that mean if there's some firmware in my electric toothbrush, not only can the patent-holder tell me not to use it on grout but also what toothpaste to buy?
(actually Proctor and Gamble) files a "friend of the court" brief siding with Lexmark.
never buy anything Lexmark.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Patents have always been about who is allowed to manufacture an invention, not about what people can do with the invention after it has been manufactured, and certainly not who it can and cannot be transferred to. They've also had fuck-all to do with end-user licenses, but instead only manufacturing licenses. So why is any court taking this seriously, let alone agreeing with it?
But, what do I expect? Copyright law doesn't require me to accept any license to use computer software, as I'm not the one producing the copy since that was done by the person who gave me the copy, and contract law requires that contracts not be unilateral -- if I give a company something, I have to get something in return, something I didn't already have a right to -- and yet somehow software licenses are upheld by the courts too.
this is a shitty clickbait headline. I think we can do better.
Same answer as my last patent post.
If you want to maintain control over something while gaining money, you RENT it.
If you SELL it, you give up the right to tell people what to do with it.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
and I always wondered how they stayed in business. You'd think word would get around.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Obviously they are trying to prevent cartridges from being refilled, but how can you patent how I repair a product I bought?
Lex got their money when I bought a cartridge, and now I refill it myself, so they are out of the picture. Right, they can void that short warranty, but I may use originals for the warranty period, they start refilling, making warranty a non-issue.
GM sells me a car but only their spare parts can be used? Only their tires? Fuel?
Can this be any simpler? Ink is not fucking rocket science, I doubt their formulations are patented. If they charged less for the ink it would not be an issue.
first of all let's consider legalism a form of union as in scared people or people who feel threatened form gangs that goes from cosa nostra threatened by government to civilians joining cops en mass despite lack of training backed by the government that got so corrupt the (i say cosa nostra but its a global symbol for how it comes to pass, read how it came to pass please) ... when faced with copyright trolls consider them very mortal
:)
then there's law, and law should be cos god say it is and you have to obey the symbol of the male dictator, wether its a symbol or a sandalwearing hippie in the sky
the man says DO and you do
short version sorry
then theres the part where they over time forget theres a limit to legalism, you can not defy the physical laws of newton stretched over the metaverser , now the metaverse is only a way of explaining to normals that physics is actually the only science that matters
(this sparks a whole lot of why my old psychology and sociology teachers spent more time explaining to class why their job was science than actually teaching)
cos a particle, at the core of everything is what decides everything, if you believe in absolute causality and the big bang for instance
there is no room for free will
which makes legalism in its own futile, be it the will of god or not, angles, accelaration, density et al define the future
so,
did anyone get anything of what i actually mean?
see thats the beauty of this place
you did
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
Why, does the Koran forbid it?
I used to work for Lexmark designing knock offs of other company's (HP) toner cartridges. What a fucking bunch of shit bags.
Lexmark isn't in the business of printers, they make their money on the ink. It makes complete sense that Lexmark would be fighting for the right to patent a printer, and patent the ink that is used by the printer. If you want to sell ink, that is the perfect way, via a cheap printer. The margin so small on printers, if not a loss. Again, all money is made on the ink, they are an ink company. Make sense now?
why would the american's european insult anyone, much less everyone?
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
I can't afford to own a printer.
not even the throwaway $30 inkjet ones that are sold as an excuse to sell you ink cartridges that cost four times as much?
Quoting another Slashdot post ...
eBay can't be sued
YES there is. We seriously need to boycott these corrupt consumer- hating companies.
Boycott
You forgot the mighty # in front of Boycott, so nobody will care.
Then how can you afford a more expensive device to access the internet and comment of slashdot.
Can a company that sold you something use its patent on that product to control how you choose to use after you buy it?
Isn't the key difference here that they did it for commercial use and profits?
If I refill my toner myself, then no, they can't tell me how to use my product after purchase.
If I refill empty toners and sell them, then it's entirely different.
- Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
Since when did maintenance become usage of patented technology? Maybe the car companies could sue every petrol station for not paying patent license for the privilege of filling a tank of a car.
waiting to happen.
A company can prevent competition from happening by misuse of a legal concept (patents) aimed at different objectives -- like protecting inventors which disclose how their creations work, obviously to facilitate the production of other inventions which would interact with the patented thing.
Like other toner cartridges. Or other kinds of ink.
In my dictionary, preventing competition means capitalism cannot exist -- because there's not a market, nor an invisible hand, nor nothing... it's just planned production, like in socialism. The only difference is that such central planning is outsourced instead of being done directly by the government.
Of course, now it makes sense why some politicians would seek alignment with Russia and Putin.
What do I need to get capitalism? Start learning mandarin?
Some libraries have computers these days.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
> It's not the courts that need to side with us, it's the legislators.
Exactly. Writing law is the job of elected legislators. A ln appointed judge's job is to read and understand the law in order to apply it to a particular case.
The current law on patents, written by legislators, is that a patent controls who can "make, sell, or use" the patented invention. The "sell or use" part needs to be fixed. Judges shouldn't just ignore the law as written whenever they unilaterally decide they don't like the law.
Oh look. An american saying his european trying to insult everyone. Lame.
A real European wouldn't be able to insult anyone, lest the authorities in Brussels turn him into a carbon fiber coffee table for sale at Ikea.
Another reason why you shouldn't care is that it only takes a single country with sane patent laws and a shipping company that doesn't mind sending you stuff you mustn't use, you bad, bad patent infringer!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So you're saying we should import Europeans?
#TonerLifeMatters
You can't boycott them all, and this problem is bigger than just a printer cartridge. This barely scratches the surface.
How about "abandonware"? Software not supported on your OS might be portable to another but there's no guarantee the original developer or new rights holder won't come after you. The storm might arrive a long time later as well: build a NES emulator and try selling it. You can get away with this right up to the point Nintendo decides there's some money in it. After that you'll get the rubber hose.
There's no point in law that says "my manufacturer has abandoned my interests" that can be followed with "I will engineer my own solution". If Lexmark stops making toner tomorrow you still can't legally make your own toner. Sure you can try and you *probably* won't get sued but that's more to do with logistics than law - the DMCA stands.
These things haven't been possible since we abolished fair use rights.
Well, they'll need somewhere to go after the Muslims drive them out.
And printers.
It's sort of the one thing I found disgusting about the hearings. Al Franken was making good but irrelevant points about arbitration. Then he went off on a Garland tangent.
The female Senator from Minnesota said that on the second round she would go into antitrust. But when the second round came she delayed antitrust for political crap. I didn't hear her questions on the third round so I don't know if she ever got to it.
Of what I heard IP was never discussed.
Yet these things affect us more then whether or not Garland got a hearing.
and if you only have money for one device, buying a printer with no computer doesn't make much sense
Consider this:
Able inverts and patents a really good razor blade which lasts 1000 shaves.
Able sells it to Baker with the restriction that he will only use it 1 time.
Baker uses it once and gives it to Charlie who cleans it an resells it understanding and ignoring the restriction.
Able sues Charlie and the it ends up before SCOTUS.
Question: was the restriction enforceable under patent law or only under contract law.
In other words, did the first sale extinguish Able's patent exclusivity right in the sold blade, or did the requirement somehow make it immortal.
Did the restriction further the useful arts by funding Able, or diminish them by limiting the use of a useful gadget.
You can be sure they'll throw plenty of resources at trying to intercept it.
I mean this is muuuuuuuch more important than drugs and explosives, right?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I'm going to start making cars (Anonymous Coward Automobile Company, DBA ACAA). I'm also going to happen to sell gas. On each car, I'm going to fashion the gas fill port to only accept the nozzle from my pumps. On each pump, I'm going to put a notice forbidding reuse or transfer to third parties.
So if you buy one of my cars and some neighborhood gas station tries to sell you gas by outfitting their pumps with my special nozzle? Bam. I own that station's ass...or at least a piece of it.
Make sense? No, in so many ways. First, there's no way you'd buy a car like mine with such a silly limitation. Sensible Automobile Company is right across the street. In short order, my ACAA is going to be out of business. Second, there's no way stations are going to retrofit their pumps to accommodate my stupid design. Third, if my ACAA became "the norm," a whole industry of pump adapters would spring up so that car owners could carry them around with them.
Sound familiar?
The manufacturer could easily determine if a cartridge for which replacement is requested *actually* warranted replacement if the consumer supplies a brief letter stating what was wrong with the product and why it was not fit for purpose.
The cartridges would further be clearly labeled "for limited use only", and the printers that use them would be similarly clearly labeled to the effect that they require only the limited use cartridges of the given brand.
This equips consumers with the information necessary for them to make an informed decision about whether they want to use such a printer and its cartridges, and allows manufacturers to control what products are used in theirs without having to rely on stupid-ass shit laws like the DMCA or something similar.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Except that this country can be barred from imports for failure to cooperate with repressive intellectual property laws. Related events occurred in Africa, where AIDS is more common that it ever became in the USA. The drug cocktails used to treat AIDS were prohibitively expensive to purchase for many of the patients, and some of these companies started manufacturing the drugs locally, in violation of international patent law.
There are a number of good articles about the problem, such as https://cyber.harvard.edu/peop... .
And the same ruling will apply to those cartridges as well. There are already manufacturer installed chips that try to prevent refilling laser cartridges.
If you haven't stolen it you don't have anything. Make everything a crime and crime isn't all that bad anymore. Make people defend their pathetic claims of innocence.
He's always onto treacherous things.
I buy cartridges in batches on eBay for Brother printers that have separate cartridges for each of the colors. They have always worked.
I buy Brother printers with separate cartridges for each color, and the cartridges in batches off eBay. I've had my current printer for quite a while now and the cartridges are reliable, so why is ths case even a thing?
and the change oil light reset code can be covered under the DCMA and no jiffy lube does not have the rights to use that code.
Any product that has ANY post sale involvement is up for DRM (Digital Rights Management) abuse! Any home appliance the breaks or needs repair! Any vehicle that needs repair! This is a BIG issue! DRM MUST be toned down to protect the original manufacturer or sale, but NOT limit or deny repair for fix by a 3rd party!
the lobbying ( bribing ) power to get the legislators, governors, judges and bureaucrats to side with them.
So, a few paiid vacations for someone is all it will take before this becomes settled.
Sad, pessimistic and cyncal, but all too true.
If I blow a Lexmark printer up, am I a patent violator? Watch out Myth Busters.
A real European wouldn't be able to insult anyone,
I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food trough wiper! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!
By this logic Lexmark is saying that it always owns the container, so by transition they need to include shipping and handling so I can return them their property and they can deal with it.
Oh look. An american saying his european trying to insult everyone. Lame.
A real European wouldn't be able to insult anyone, lest the authorities in Brussels turn him into a carbon fiber coffee table for sale at Ikea.
So they would turn him into a carbon fiber coffee table, and then dis-assemble him?!?!
Dude, that's brutal!
I hope he had one of those little wrenches in his pocket when they zapped him...
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
If lexmark win this then every car manufacturer will be able to create their own fuel and shut out generic petrol alternatives.
Hell... You could make a toaster that must only run on your specific brand of bread.
Or even better... A toothbrush that is only licensed to use one brand of toothpaste.
Hell, a glass that may only use a specific brand of sparkling water.
FFS!!
You didn't work hard enough.
I can't afford to own a printer.
not even the throwaway $30 inkjet ones that are sold as an excuse to sell you ink cartridges that cost four times as much?
Need to watch sales more, bro. I bought a Pantum wireless laser printer on NewEgg Flash for $25 with free shipping. Works with the Windows desktops, Linux desktops, and Mac laptops here with no issue. Bought it in August 2015 and it is just recently started displaying the notification LED that the original (lower yield) toner cartridge is running low.
So Lexmark has a patent on their special cartridges - meaning others can't manufacture such cartridges due to the patent. Similar to how Ford has various patents on their cars - so others can't make Ford lookalikes. Perhaps not even "ford compatible gas tanks" because a patent cover the tank design.
Lexmark doesn't have a patent on toner though, so others can make & sell toner. Similar to how third parties can make gasoline - even gasoline for Ford cars.
So they can certainly re-fill lexmark cartridges with un-patented toner. (Just as anyone can put gasoline in car tanks.) They can't make replacement cartridges, but they can top up existing cartridges until they wear out. And then they can repair them, if need be.
The slight difference where cars were designed to be filled by third parties and printer cartridges were not, does not matter here. As long as the toner itself isn't patent encumbered - fine.
You can buy a cheap Android phone for $10 in a grocery store.
So if I buy say....Cool Whip...or butter in a tub...or any product that has a plastic container I can reuse; if they print "Do not reuse container"...wouldn't that mean I'd legally have to dispose of the container rather than doing my own recycling? Or is it a thing that Lexmark has a specific patent on their printer cartridges that would make this work...where as food vendors don't have the patents. I'm just wondering if anyone is thinking about the repercussions outside of printers; because you know there are lawyers who make a living off taking a judgement for one thing and arguing it in court for another and setting new precedence. I save the glass jars from stuff I get..wash them out...do something else. I don't want to have to go spend good money on empty jars just because Smuckers or someone decided I couldn't use a jar I already paid for.
Try, just TRY to disallow imports from China.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"The insurance business is completely screwy now.
You know they've reintroduced the death penalty for insurance company directors?"
"Really?" said Arthur. "No, I didn't. For what offense?"
Trillian frowned.
"What do you mean, offense?"
"I see."
We've gone off the rails and nobody wants to accept the pain necessary to fix it.
Governments recognize the need to incentivize intellectual achievement. We want inventors and creators to have sufficient incentive to create the things we all benefit from. The problem is that not all intellectual property creations benefit the public equally. Lawmakers are rightfully wary of creating a mess by valuing them on a case by case basis. As a result, we give the same value to a company's patent on an ink cartridge design necessary to work in the company's printer as we do to a replacement for a carburetor that cuts fuel cost and emissions.
If I own a printer company and I design a novel ink cartridge that I can get a patent on and I make all of the printers I create require said design of printer cartridge, I've given myself a monopoly. That's not really a bad thing in itself, because that cartridge design really is novel. The problem is that the public only benefits from maybe five years of protection on that patent, but we give twenty because we don't want the hassle of determining which inventions are worth protecting for twenty years and which are worth protecting for one year.
There is a fix, and it's simple. The problem is that it will piss off a lot of companies that sway public opinion and thus re-electability of politicians. If you're the politician who removes the profit from a thousand successful companies, your time in office is suddenly curtailed. Still, if we can elect enough politicians who care more about doing public good than getting reelected, they should make patents and copyrights default to one year, with a special hearing needed to extend it to five years and another to ten and a final one to extend it to the max of twenty (with grandfathering to ensure the economy doesn't flip out immediately.) Ditto for copyright and other forms of intellectual property protection.
And while we're on the subject of electability, it seems that every commenter I've seen in recent times agrees that getting money for a campaign determines who gets elected, but that's confusing causality with correlation. (If you're one of them, you've probably already stopped reading and are getting your angry rant and insults keyboard plugged in, but read on so you can insult my arguments properly.) Popular politicians win elections and popular politicians get campaign money. It's not one because of the other, it's a correlation. I doubt most people who believe money buys elections will bother to learn more, but there is some good info and links at http://freakonomics.com/2012/0... .
If Mr. Adams were writing the line today, I suspect it would be patent lawyers instead.
You can absolutely sell an Emulator. Connectix got sued by Sony for their Virtual Game Station PSX emulator, and won.
Writing law is the job of elected legislators.
cute, but in actuality change the verb to "copying and pasting" and change the subject to "staff of legislators". Legislators are just the fundraising figurehead of the organization. And once you realize that our laws are written by 22 year old grads of ivy league schools you start to understand why they are so messed up.
While true that China is too large a trading partner to ignore, trade with them has more legal and financial levers to apply. Tariffs matter a great deal to trade with China. So do exports from the US, especially aircraft, electrical equipment, food, and a number of other US exports.
You failed reading comprehension, didn't you?
Article is about TONER cartridges. You know, the ones LASER PRINTERS use. It's not about ink cartridges, although the same things apply to them as well.
And "Right to Repair" is going away as well, which is also a bad thing, for the same reasons. It seems no matter how much money Corporations make, it is never enough.
This greed shit HAS to fucking stop.
The way printer companies try to function is very much as a monopoly.
Seems to me, lawyers should be able to use the anti-trust regulations against those companies -- arguing that these attempts to monopolize the toner market are harmful to consumers (since they are). Or, maybe those arguments have already been tried and failed?
Writing law is the job of elected legislators
Actually, they are too busy taking bribes (aka campaign contributions). This job is left to the staff, who are generally lawyers. They tend to write the laws in such a fashion as to create future business for their profession. It's unethical, of course, but the courts are also staffed by lawyers - and the judges get selected by ignoring major legal ethics issues.
Between the corrupt and the unethical, US law is a disaster - and it's going to stay that way until the public decides to do something about it.
. Judges shouldn't just ignore the law as written whenever they unilaterally decide they don't like the law.
This is a tricky issue, because the US Bill of Rights is open-ended. James Madison made it that way, to address the concerns the Anti-Federalists had with the pre-Bill of Rights Constitution. This is actually a good thing - unspecified rights are "retained to" the people (9th Amendment) and "reserved to" the people (10th Amendment). But it does mean that the law as written actually requires judges to hold invalid local, state, and federal laws when those laws violate fundamental rights.
In short, legislative authority ends when the laws as written violate any rights the people choose to assert, because of the higher law (the Bill of Rights being the highest law in the land) as written.
In practice, of course, the corruption and ethics problems mentioned above tend to ensure that this happens seldom. Also, few people in the legal profession want people asserting rights without their involvement - it's a lot like priests and religion, individual faith is anathema because then who needs the priests?
woooshhh..."...i told him we already had one..."
you mean after the Muslims drive them out.....again?
This is clearly overreach. If you understand what a patent is, and the control it provides, it is obvious that it has no power over products produced legally under the patent. It does have power over who can make a cartridge using that patented technology.
If I want to buy a Lexmark toner cartridge and turn it into modern art, the patent has no power to stop me.
So with this sort of ruling we know the judiciary has become corrupted. When this happens there are two other branches of government to appeal to that can bring them in line. I suspect that too much of the legislature is also controlled by corporations so look to the executive branch.
If I buy a car fill with gas from Toyota do I have to buy gas from Toyota every fill up?
/international/ patent law? I was under the impression that a patent was only valid in the countries that it has been registered in. If a country doesn't accept a patent there is no protection in that country. Try importing into a country that has the patent and there is a case for the patent, but if the product doesn't enter one of those countries you are untouchable.