How Lexmark's patent fight to crush an ink reseller will affect us all If printer maker Lexmark International prevails against ink cartridge reseller Impression Products, tech giants and other American companies will gain the ability to control products through patent claims after they have been sold. The Federal Circuit Court in Washington, DC, last year supported this idea by siding with …
Lexmark also contends that a notice on its packaging binds customers to return used cartridges to Lexmark rather than disposing of them elsewhere. (Lexmark sells some cartridges at a discount under its Return Program, while also selling full-priced cartridges without a contractual notice on the packaging.)
Say what!? I received an email a year ago from Lexmark saying that the Rewards program was now defunct and I wouldn't be receiving any of the promised rewards for being a loyal customer.
This sounded slightly mad to me too. If Lexmark want to sell cheap cartridges in return for receiving the empties back then they should ship or sell the new cartridges once they receive the returns. Trying to tie customers to some sort of contract by writing something on the pack isn't going to stand up.
Look on the bright side. The American presidency is only a lease as well.
Up to now, that is. Remember that Trump does things differently. He's already clamping down on dissent and criticism, let's see what he tries in three and a bit years, assuming they don't impeach him first.
I want to see the printer design capable of accommodating a golf club as a printer head.
When I close my eyes I see a nightmarish vision of the ancient IBM typewriter style daisy wheel with golf clubs attached to it. It will print all right. Very deep imprints - in whatever you put into where the clubs hit.
I guess we'll have to modify Goodwin's law ... :-P
But seriously... Lexmark is going to win if they actually hired good lawyers.
Its one thing for you, joe consumer to buy the cartridge and then buy the ink to refill the cartridge. Its another for a company to buy your spent cartridges and refill them for resale. The amicus brief is garbage.
There's actually case law that supports Lexmark. You can see the future too.
Keurig Coffee had the K-Cups. While the patent was in force, only Keurig could make coffee pods for their coffee machines. When the patent ran out, others could make K-Cups, so Keurig's only option was to re-invent the wheel to freeze out the competition. (The profit was in the coffee not the brewer.) That was a complete failure.
So until Lexmark loses the patent, if you own a Lexmark, you have to buy their cartridges unless they license a third party to resell their products.
When consumers are offered a choice and they take the time to do their research like the TCO of the printer over the 3-5 year life of the printer... they may purchase a different product.
Again, you want to refill your own ink cartridges... nothing Lexmark can do to stop you.
This issue is about a business reselling used cartridges and Lexmark is suing them by arguing a patent violation. You can look at the K-Cup lawsuits as a pattern that Lexmark can use and probably argue in court because that's what Keurig did.
To your point, once the patent expired... Keurig couldn't stop other companies offering K-Cups and with their new product... sales were kind of flat. Consumers didn't buy in to it.
Personally I have a built in Miele coffee machine that makes the perfect cup of coffee and all I need to do is to add my own beans, milk and keep the damn thing clean. :-)
"I don't recall anyone refilling used K-Cups, though. That spat was about compatible competing products."
The similarity is that both are using patent law to protect their IP and their profit streams. In both, the printer and the brewer are sold with minimal profit while the real revenue stream is in the coffee and ink. (See that similarity?)
In the case of Lexmark, its reusing their cartridges to make a competing product. In the case of Kreuig, its a compatible container. In both cases they used patent law to defend their position. Very similar.
Enough that a good lawyer for Lexmark will make a similar argument.
They can even make more arguments about protecting their brand and the consumer from dodgy products based on the refill cartridges.
The odds favor Lexmark.
"Its one thing for you, joe consumer to buy the cartridge and then buy the ink to refill the cartridge. Its another for a company to buy your spent cartridges and refill them for resale. The amicus brief is garbage."
So you won't be able to by refurbed engine/car parts either? Or any other kind of spares or consumables capable of being refurbed? There's been a second hand refurb market since stone age hunters put new shafts to flint arrowheads and vice versa so how is this one different?
I think you missed the point that Lexmark is arguing about a patent violation.
They are trying to protect their product and patent.
In the end, the law is on their side.
Now show me an aftermarket product that violates a patent, and I'll show you a lawsuit.
And if you want to see an example of where aftermarket parts make a difference, take a look at Remington Rifles and Browning. Remington 700s are the most popular bolt action rifles around. Why? Because you can customize them. Browning? Not so much. (THere's also the Ruger 10/22 but that's a different beast.)
"I think you missed the point that Lexmark is arguing about a patent violation."
I'm still not seeing it. To violate a patent you have to be making a patent protected item or buying patent protected items/components without a licence. So long as they are refilling with a non-patented ink formulation, I can't see a patent violation. Patents don't protect an item from being resold. Unless there are a part or parts being replaced as part of the refurb, which the article doen't mention, or if maybe it's a "design patent" being argued about.
Those competitors were manufacturing Keurig compatible cartridges.
The companies in this case are not manufacturing Lexmark compatible cartridges. They are aquiring legally manufactured cartridges, refurbing them, and then selling the refurbedded cartridges.
They are completely different situations.
Patents only cover the manufacturing of a patent protected product, not the re-using of said product.
If Lexmark win, it would be illegal to re-build engines or engine components that were under patent and sell them. E.g. rebuilding a gearbox, or a carbareutter, or re-boring an engine block, or hell, buying and fixing up damaged cars and then selling them on. Amy company - and there are many - that is in the business of refurbing used products - otherwise know as recycling - still under patent protection would be put out of business. Car rebuilders, white-goods re-conditioners, IT resellers, smarthphone and tablet resellers who buy broken phones and refurb them and then sell them, and so on.
Yes, we are still printing.
Personally I "enjoy" printing out pictures of my kids. I say "enjoy" because it comes at a price.
It started two years ago, a friend bought us a printer for the holidays. The ink Canon supplied with their product soon ran out (of course), so I thought "why not give third-party ink a go?". That ink was much cheaper, but the photos now show my kids looking like oompa-loompas, complete with orange faces and green clothes.
So I am back to the original Canon ink. I cannot help but note that ordering from Canon's website was the cheapest option, yet they were able to ship the ink straight to my door (a guy came to check my signature and everything). I smell a markup.
I realize there is nothing new in my comment: Cheap printer hardware, expensive ink. Same old story. Just let me have my little rant here, ok?
How much the paper you print to costs? I've printed on some (excellent) papers that cost far more than the inks. And they are still "only" sheet of paper (or canvas). Why people complain about inks only?
Bringing the ink to you also costs. There's obviously also some greed involved to make some easy money, but the idea that consumables should be very cheap is a bit distorted.
The film I put in my camera wasn't cheap, nor the print I made. The fuel I burn in the heater already costed me far more than the heater itself. Even beer is overpriced, believe me....
BTW: using different inks, if not quite exactly like the original ones, means you need to create new color profiles for the ink/paper combination(s) you use. Otherwise the result will be far from good. The quality of third party inks varies a lot - there are good suppliers, and bad ones. For photo (and other art uses) printing, reliability and consistency of inks matter a lot. Differences among batches are an issue.
I didn't buy a photo printer to save - but to control the process fully. Thereby right now I stick to original inks. Maybe one day I'll have time to experiment with third party ones, and see what they can do after being properly profiled.
Bringing the ink to you also costs. There's obviously also some greed involved to make some easy money, but the idea that consumables should be very cheap is a bit distorted.
The film I put in my camera wasn't cheap, nor the print I made.
In the early days of inkjets, HP had a gross margin on ink cartridges of around 95%. Of course, quite a lot of that margin went into persuading the supply chain to push inkjets, but HP still did very well out of it.
Film and printing paper - completely different. A camera could run any make or type of film in one of two common sizes - 35mm and 120. Kodak's semi-proprietary sizes (127 and 620) resulted in products that rapidly lost value, and the film was discontinued. As a result of the common sizes, film making was extremely competitive and resulted in very high quality product at rather low prices. It cost an awful lot more to make a roll of 35mm film than an inkjet cartridge, but the film was a quarter of the price.
Kodak started off with cameras that were almost given away in order to make money on the film, which was proprietary. It did not work, and the Box Brownie, running standard 120, was for years their biggest volume camera.
So competitive you had essentially three main vendors only, Kodak, Agfa and Fuji (Ilford was mostly a B/W company).
While some low-end negative film was cheap (and often given away together the far pricier development and printing), high-end ones, and reversal ones were not cheap at all. The cost is more or less that of an ink cartridge. In the early days inks were more expensive than today - it's good if competition can keep prices lower.
If you developed yourself, nor color chemical (and once opened, they had a short shelf life) and nor papers (and proofs "wasted" some) were cheap . Nor processing and larger prints from a reputable lab were, either.
Sure, all you needed were the 4"x6" prints from a one-hour lab, it looked almost cheap... and in that case I would advise against printing at home, it would be just more expensive and results may be very variable. One of the photo printing business will probably yield better results at lower prices. If you aim for better results on larger prints, and like to be in total control, cost is no longer the main driver.
While 135 and 120 film were the most common, 126, 127 and 110 saw success for a while, especially for very cheap cameras. According to Wikipedia, 127 film was produced by Kodak from 1912 to 1995.... 620 is 120 film on a different spool - and you can still buy it.
Later attempts (disc, APS) were big failures - electronic compact cameras became very small, cheap, and made using 135 film easy even for the most clueless user, so no need for more formats.
No, if a printer detects the wrong ink it messes up and alters colour balances and all sorts.
If you fool the printer well enough it is fine.
The things that annoy me most are:
Stupidly small amounts of ink in the cartridge. Look at the volume of the cartridge and read how much ink you get... the bulk is waste product, it would be very simple to design with a decent amount of ink (and indeed you can usually find cartridges with significantly more ink available in them in the same physical size)
The MOST annoying is that at least some printers refuse to print black and white when red has run out DESPITE having a black cartridge present and full. What the hell is that about other than screwing the consumer?
Really come back my old 9 pin with its multicoloured ribbon that lasted and lasted and lasted...
"Personally I "enjoy" printing out pictures of my kids. I say "enjoy" because it comes at a price."
The cost of maintaining a printer for this kind of printing isn't worth it. I just use one of the myriad of online print services. They're using proper Fujifilm printers so you get an actual photograph which won't fade like an inkjet print. The cost isn't any higher than printing at home, once you've factored in replacing dried up cartridges that you haven't used for a couple of months and the multiple prints you have to do because you set the wrong colour profile or you loaded 7x5 paper when you wanted 6x4 etc.
"I just use one of the myriad of online print services."
Yes, places like Photobox, DS Colour Labs, et al are good, but they're not perfect. I've had a couple of prints come that were obviously wrong on colour balance (company's fault, not mine) and needed to be redone, which is annoying, and less convenient than if you'd printed it (time-to-correction).
"They're using proper Fujifilm printers so you get an actual photograph which won't fade like an inkjet print."
My inkjet has "lightfast" inks, which are allegedly rated to 100+ years. The first prints out of it are over a decade old, and haven't faded.
"The cost isn't any higher than printing at home"
Actually, for A4 prints, on my printer, including paper, it is cheaper for me to print my own. This is not the case for 6x4's, nor bigger than A4 (can't do).
"once you've factored in replacing dried up cartridges that you haven't used for a couple of months"
I use my printer on a weekly basis, so this isn't a problem.
"and the multiple prints you have to do because you set the wrong colour profile or you loaded 7x5 paper when you wanted 6x4 etc"
Never had this happen. Ever. In 10 years.
Instead of using an online print service.
You could just invest in a reasonable colour laser printer, which wont fade and wont dry out if you dont use it... work out how much you print, work out all the costs for two years of use with an average amount of printing each month factored in and you will see ink printers simply dont make any sense what so ever. Most people realise they start saving inside the first 6 or 12 months when using a colour laser instead.
Laser are not an option for photos, but for the less demanding needs. Most of them have also paper paths that may have issue with heavier papers, and have the bad habit of curling it. If you need something beyond A4 it could become really large, heavy and expensive. And the photo quality can't match a pro photo printer.
I now have an A4 color laser (with duplex) for generic documents, and an A3+ inkjet pro photo printer (I would have liked an A2, but it would have been too large/heavy), because I eventually found I couldn't cover both needs with a single printer. The photo inks are too expensive to print generic documents (and options like duplex are not available), while printers designed to keep per page costs down are not suitable for high quality photos.
Laser not good for photos? Can I have some of the crack you are on? (seriously, my supplier has retired)
I purchased a Sharp MX-4101N at an auction for about 250GBP, each of the three 15k page colour cartridges were between 50% and 70% full, and the 36k black was about 80% full.
It can print up to A3 size paper at 1200DPI, has a 100-sheet straight-through paper path option for heavier stock, a 150 sheet ADF for scanning up to 9600DPI or copying, 4*500 sheet input trays (one has A3 paper in at the moment). network printing, many irrelevant business functions. It prints beautiful photos.
And here's the dirty secret of toner and ink cost - the cheaper the printer the more expensive the toner, the more expensive the printer the cheaper the toner. If you print a lot, you are better off paying a lot (say $1k-$2k) for a printer than only $400. Or, like I did, pay 250GBP for a second hand printer from auction that brand new cost north of 3k GBP, and comes with about 250GBP worth of toner in it.
You may have missed the improvement in inks (and papers) in the past ten years or so. Of course you need to use photo inks designed to last.
This guy made a lot of accelerated aging tests: http://www.wilhelm-research.com/
Prints on silver-halide paper may even last less.
Then, if you make many mistakes while printing, well, probably is not your hobby <G>
I am not maintaining it. Using and throwing away proved to be a much cheaper option to me. I am relocating with all and every of my contracts. I need some printer and scanner to deal with my paperwork, for example to sign and mail contracts and tax returns. Buying the second cheapest multifunctional devices from the nearest shop works perfectly. The most complex bit is how to dispose the device when I move on. Thou shall not throw any electronics in the green bin, it is for garden clippings only.
@9Rune5: Perhaps Canon is different - I've never owned one.
However, I have lost count of the number of HP and Epson prints I have done - but it's in the thousands. I can see no difference in the initial quality or longevity of the HP/Epson prints and the 'own brand' sellers. It's all bullsh*t from corporate liars.
100% with you about the markup rip-off - I just haven't seen the gulf in quality that you have observed. You stick with the Canon 'own brand', I'll stick with the HP compaitible- and we'll both be happy at our own wisdom in making the right choice.
Yes - as long as the most-used document format used practically everywhere in business is still paper-shaped, produced and consumed by software designed for working with paper-shaped documents, then wasteful printing will always continue because the antiquated document format simply encourages it.
@goldcd
SWMBO has just left for the patchwork class she runs. She has taken with her 6 copies of class notes comprising 6 sides of A4 each. In addition there are 6 copies of today's pattern on flimsy paper. What did you expect her to do? Write them out by hand and add watercolour to the illustration on the title page?
> I mean that seriously.
Not only are we still printing, in my case we are printing more. I used to print very little, only the odd photograph to stick on the wall, and if I need a few sheets to take with me somewhere. Eventually it came to the point where I didn't bother actually having a printer (which made it annoying for that once in a blue moon time when I needed to print something out, like airline boarding passes).
However I grew tired of staring at screens, I was staring at screens for work, staring at screens for shopping, staring at screens for dating, staring at screens for consumption of entertainment, staring at screens for doing my taxes, and staring at screens to study.
I had enough. So now for study (and some entertainment) I have taken to printing out ebooks and reading them on paper. Not only is it easier on the eyes, but I can actually underline, highlight, make notes, and mark bits I am interested in.
Plus I can easily take the book with me to work, or anywhere else, and have all the notes and references there, and it is in a universal format that has persisted for thousands of years.
Also I have to say, it feels nice, the tactile feedback of paper, and needs no power to have the information on tap.
I've since bought some good quality paper, and a book binding kit, so have taken to binding my own books. they even look nice organised on the shelf.
Coupled with Project Gutenberg and archive.org. there is a large body of out of print free ebooks on all kinds of topics I never even have considered before, so now I can build up my own library relatively cheaply.
> Ehm, what's wrong in buying books already printed and bound? You could also help some jobs to survive...
Alas no bookshops in my area. I think the last one shut down 5 years ago. Most people seem to prefer tablets and ebook readers for the convenience, so all book shops near me have long gone. Also I can get books that are out of print now.
I do buy books, but have to do it online (sigh), plus wait for them to be delivered (usually around a week) and be at home at the right time. With my current set up I can get a book from an online archive printed and bound in under an hour at any time I want, ready for reading. Plus I can pick fonts and layouts that I find the most pleasing for reading.
I admit I have taken to some enjoyment to doing it too, it could turn into a hobby of mine. I can also make all the books have the same outside covers and dimensions, so looks neater on my shelf.
The only thing lacking right now is a good method of printing onto the spine cover. Sticky labels or marker pen just doesn't look that nice.
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