Lexmark Sues 24 Companies Over Toner-Cartridge Patents

eldavojohn writes "Remember back in 2003, when Lexmark tried to use the DMCA to stop aftermarket toner cartridges from being produced? Well, they're now suing 24 companies for infringing on 15 patents they have on toner cartridges. The article also notes that Lexmark has been filing lawsuits over patent infringement on formulas for their inks."

Re:Lexmark still sells printers?

[Darkness404]

Yes, Lexmark still sells printers and yes, their printers still cost less than their ink cartridges. And yes, their drivers are as crappy as ever.

Re:Formulas?

[finarfinjge]

You don't seem too familiar with the various types of intellectual property and how they are regulated. Copyright is not patent. You can indeed copyright a recipe. You can also patent it. The entire drug industry depends on it. The more specific the patent, the easier it is for someone to make a trivial change to the recipe and outflank the patent. As such, it is advisable to make one's patent application as general as possible. Whether you believe that is bad or good, it is the law. As for the specifics of toner cartridges, I'd be very surprised if any particular cartridge was only covered by one patent.

Cheers

JE

Re:Lexmark on Linux

[Andorin]

A better link to the comic [xkcd.com] for anyone who views this thread after tonight, when a new comic goes up.

Re:Formulas?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are correct. See below exert:

How do I protect my recipe?
A mere listing of ingredients is not protected under copyright law. However, where a recipe or formula is accompanied by substantial literary expression in the form of an explanation or directions, or when there is a collection of recipes as in a cookbook, there may be a basis for copyright protection. Note that if you have secret ingredients to a recipe that you do not wish to be revealed, you should not submit your recipe for registration, because applications and deposit copies are public records. See FL 122, Recipes.

Source: U.S. Copyright office [copyright.gov]

Re:Evidently you've not shopped for a laser printe

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, except that the toner cartridges can print 10,000 pages.

The Magnusson Moss Warranty Act does not let them

[Joe The Dragon]

The Magnusson Moss Warranty Act does not let them void the Warranty so they just try this BS to lock out the 3rd party stuff.

What if a car maker pulled this on a radio interface so you are locked in to there radio and can't install your own. What about remote starters?
In car DVD and TV systems?

Re:Evidently you've not shopped for a laser printe

[Adrian Lopez]

Evidently you've not shopped for a laser printer recently. Toner isn't any cheaper. I think they migrated the laser printers to inkjet printer model some time ago. Cost of toner cartridge today can go over a hundred dollars easily. Some manufacturers even have built in page counters on toner cartridges that would refuse to print once certain page count is reached, irrespective of the actual amount of toner remaining in the cartridge.

The cost per page for toner is less than the cost per page for ink. For example, this HP ink cartridge [adorama.com] costs 4.4 cents per page, while this HP toner cartridge [adorama.com] costs 1.3 cents per page.

Re:Lexmark still sells printers?

[fluffy99]

Every single Lexmark printer we've bought in the past 6 years died within 18-months (not by my choice obviously). That's including the cheap inkjets and their bigger workgroup lasers. Most of the inkjets simply melted their power supplies. They also sucked that really expensive ink down really quick.

Re:A nice advertisement...

[REggert]

I bought a Brother printer a few months ago when my Canon printer became irreparably clogged. It has worked quite well for me so far. The ink even comes in individual per-color cartridges.

Re:Patent 1

[Delarth799]

Well they have have their inkt and make it as expensive as they want but all everybody else cares about is ink. They really need to lower the price of the ink, maybe even charge a bit more for printers.

Re:Lexmark still sells printers?

[afidel]

Unless you do a crazy amount of greater than 8x10 prints you're probably better off with a cheap laser and Walgreens/Costco/etc with a real mini-lab, better quality than any sub $5,000 printer, prints will last a lifetime or more, and it's cheaper per print when you consider all costs.

Re:Lexmark still sells printers?

[Pax00]

Canon Pro 9500 Mark II is a great machine.

If you are looking for something larger than this, I don't know but I would still go Canon on for it.

Re:Lexmark still sells printers?

[sconeu]

Brother uses PostScript. But they also have Linux support and drivers on their site.

We had a workgroup Brother DCP series printer and it was very nice, for both Windows and Linux.

Re:Lexmark still sells printers?

[fluffy99]

I don't mean to debunk anecdotal evidence with more of the same, but I have a Lexmark z2940 wireless printer .... Prints fine using wireless.

Except for the fact that the ink cartridges are either empty or dried up...

You mean the z2420? Looking at Walmart online, the printer costs $39, the black ink cartridge is $30 and a color cartridge is $32. You validated the comments that the original ink cartridges are only partially filled (ala HP) and dry up really fast.

Most of the reviews on this model are horrible, such as CNET giving it 1.5/5 stars and most comments talking about poor printouts and jamming.

Somehow I don't think you've debunked much yet. Let me know if it lives past a year.

Re:Formulas?

[DarkKnightRadick]

Either that or the FOSS projects become just like them (saying who can and cannot have their "free" software).

Re:People still buy ink jet printers?

[waferhead]

Colour laser printers are under $200, and the toner cartridges last a hell of a long time. Why is anyone buying ink-based printers?

Because color laser 'photo quality" prints look like modern inkjet prints set to "fast draft"?

As said before, Wagreens/Walmart are really the best option for really nice photo prints... but at home, a good quality in jet on glossy "photo paper" has a great deal of wife approval factor.

Re:Formulas?

[jimicus]

Lexmark are (in)famous for this.

A toner cartridge is just a plastic box full of wet ink (for an inkjet) or dry toner (for a laser), right?

Wrong.

If you're Lexmark, it also contains a chip which does various (patented) things that the printer uses to confirm it's got a genuine Lexmark cartridge installed. Abracadabra, you can now use patent protection to ensure that only your exorbitantly expensive cartridges get used.

Re:Formulas?

[Knuckles]

Protected they may be, but not copyrighted. Trade secrets, most likely (after all they don't print the instructions for the actual creation of the cookie onto the packaging).

Screw Lexmark... Get a Brother

[salesgeek]

Brother is making some great printers these days, and have Linux support for almost all of them. Linux Support = support for CUPS, LPD and SANE. Many of the drivers are GPL, so you can get code from Brother's website. Many of the drivers are in Ubuntu's repos, so most of the time you can just apt-get.

Most print features are implemented. Also, Brother's ink is not chipped, and you can buy genuine Brother ink for about $9/cartridge or get third party ink for about $3 per cartridge (you can probably refill, too, but for $3 per, why mess with it). The cleaning cycles don't tap the ink on Brother printers the way they do on Lexmark either. I had a Lexmark years ago that would get about 40 pages out over one month and need $60 worth of ink.

The only thing with Brother is that their printers are $10-$20 more than the comparable Lexmark or Brother, but you'll get you $20 back on the first round of ink.

Re:Lexmark still sells printers?

[aztracker1]

Brother's drivers are open-source, and available... they just don't seem to be included in the repositories. Most of my experience is with Ubuntu, and a Brother FAX 4100, laser+fax printer. The fax functionality is separate from print. The printer shows up as a straight laser printer, no fax out or scanning, which is fine with me... It's just having to download from the Brother website and install the drivers is a bit too manual for my taste in this day and age, where most other OSes simply detect and download the appropriate drivers via a wizard-style UI.