Refilling Carts is a criminal patent infringement?

[Muad Dib]

This from an RSS feed. Patents cover a "one use only" clause? Hmmmmm........

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/04/1944210&from=rss


"They'll stop me from re-filling when they pry the cartridge from my cold, dead hand!"

 

[danrad]

Can anyone please shed some more light on this topic. I cannot forsee a change in the whole industy of refilling inkjets. I hope this does not become law, It seems anytime we get ahead the rich are trying to shut us down.

Dan.

 

[fotofreek]

This "serious crime" is right up there with the criminal act of tearing the "do not remove" tags off of a mattress or pillow.

 

[zakezuke]

This "serious crime" is right up there with the criminal act of tearing the "do not remove" tags off of a mattress or pillow.

It's nothing like pulling the tags off a mattress or a pillow, and it's only an offence if they are removed before sale. After sale pull away. The tags are there listing the contents.... which I imagine might be an issue if you are alergic to something used in the stuffing.

Refilling those prebate cartridges is not a crime but patent infringement and a violation of a contract, and I believe it applies mainly to their toner.

The deal is this...

You can buy the toner at regular price, do with it as you like
or
Buy the toner and get what's called a prebate. Doing so you agree to the terms and conditions on the outside of the box which include returning the cartridge back to Lexmark when done. You agree not to give it to a third party to refilling and you agree not to refill it your self. It's unclear to me whether a 3rd party two referbishes cartridges can be held liable for refilling a lexmark prebate, after all even assuming there is a contract there it would be between the consumer and lexmark, and any third party *shouldn't* be bound buy terms and condtions they clearly didn't agree to. But this will make for an interesting case as it moves up the courts. The 9th circuit court does have the standing record for most desisions overturned after all and this desision does sign the end of physical property.

Refilling these laser cartridges are reported to as being a pain due to the encrypted e-prom that can't be easily replaced with anything off the shelf, not without microcoding. But it's not impossible.

 

[Kenyada]

Can anyone please shed some more light on this topic. I cannot forsee a change in the whole industy of refilling inkjets. I hope this does not become law, It seems anytime we get ahead the rich are trying to shut us down.

Dan.

I would think that post 9/11, the government has bigger fish to fry. If I purchased a printer; If I purchased a Ford car... I refilled my ink cartridges with third party ink instead of OEM. I replaced my spark plugs with XYZ instead of Ford's Motorcraft. I don't think either industry would try to make a test case out of that... Not a good test case anyway.

 

[lg2005]

bunch os BS, refill as much as you want! Its INTENDED for single use.

James

 

[tcool93]

I didn't read every word of the article linked to by slashdot. But from what I did read, mostly that court document pdf file. Both slashdot and the other website are twisting the story around somewhat.

The court lawsuit has something to do with special cartridges that Lexmark supposedly sells cheaper if you agree to not return the cartridge to someone else, or reuse it.

http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/ACRA_v_Lexmark/ACRA_v_Lexmark_9th_circuit_ruling.pdf

Apparently Lexmark sells one with this "prebate" program, and the more expensive cartridges without the restriction. I only assume that because it says this in that PDF court document. "Consumers can opt to buy Lexmark cartridges without the Prebate post-sale restriction, but at a higher price".

But either way, it just another reason people need to avoid using Lexmark printers. And why Canon is the best in my opinion, both print quality and ease of refilling.

 

[fotofreek]

Here's a link to a Business World article from the magazine dated October 28, 2005, about retail store refilling businesses. Some interesting info. Obviously, the people on this forum who refill their carts for a 90% savings won't use a service that refills their carts to save 50%. The statistic that really cought my eye was that HP makes 80% of their profits from inkjet ink and toner even though this only represents a quarter of their sales. We always knew that these inks were overpriced, but that level of profit is absolutely mind boggling!

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2005/tc20051028_769763.htm?campaign_id=rss_tech

Sorrythat the long link broke into two lines. You can also look it up on Google by keying in business week ink cartridges or business week upstarts spread in the ink wars.

 

[websnail]

The statistic that really cought my eye was that HP makes 80% of their profits from inkjet ink and toner even though this only represents a quarter of their sales. We always knew that these inks were overpriced, but that level of profit is absolutely mind boggling!

I'm afraid it doesn't surprise me at all..

When I did the sums to check my business plan supplying and maintaining CIS pre-installed printers, I found that Epson and HP were charging a HUGE amount of money for their cartridges and toner. Granted they have to do cover their development costs and the like but you quickly realise why their business plan does this.

It's important to recognise though that they are a business... If it doesn't make a profit they aren't going to do it.. and if it's obscene then the customers will eventually find out, look elsewhere and/or just avoid their products in the future. Scarily most people don't see it until a year or so down the road and by then, there's some other tasty "gadget" out there to tempt the unwary...

Either way, I know that one school I support with 4 CIS printers, managed to save over 500 this year (after all the capital and labour expenses) on generic refilled carts... and closer to 3,000 on Epson branded carts (based on RRP). Next year, it'll be closer to 1,500 and 4,500 respectively...



So, yeah, not surprised and thanks to them I have a solid business plan..

 

[drc023]

Refilling by CIS or syringe is a completely responsible action. It makes perfect sense not only on an economic basis but from an environmental standpoint as well. I'm not a tree hugger, but I do hate to see natural resources wasted or misused. To make and then dispose of all the plastic in ink and toner cartridges is a colossal waste. Instead of siding with companies such as Lexmark and discouraging recycling of durable supply items, I'd love to see the gov't actually take a proactive step in this area by giving the manufacturers and consumers an incentive to recycle or refill their empties. On an individual or regional basis the amount of plastic discarded may not appear that significant, but on a national or global basis the problem is huge.