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The Courts Government Patents Printer News Your Rights Online

U.S. Court: Lexmark Can Tie Rebates To Refills 365

Posted by timothy from the how-conveeeenient dept.
SteveOU writes "Lexmark won a favorable judgement in its attempt to prevent competitors from refilling its cartridges. The judgement, issued by Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, was a big loss for 'the rest of us,' reading in part "Because of its patents, Lexmark has the right to impose conditions on the sale of its patented product. It may restrict a purchaser's ability to repair it, which is what in essence the single-use condition does." What now? Will GM prohibit unauthorized repairs of its patented car components?"
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U.S. Court: Lexmark Can Tie Rebates To Refills More

U.S. Court: Lexmark Can Tie Rebates To Refills

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  • Woo! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Locky ( 608008 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @07:59AM (#7136337) Homepage
    Another victory for the DMCA, Gimme a hell yeah!

  • So, America... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nordicfrost ( 118437 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @08:00AM (#7136341)
    Has your patent legislation done any good for you lately?


    (Not that ours has)

    • Re:So, America... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by macdaddy357 ( 582412 ) <macdaddy357@hotmail.com> on Sunday October 05, 2003 @11:04AM (#7136924)
      Here is an answer. Boycott lexmark. You need a printer? May I suggest Brother, Canon, HP, Xerox, the list goes on and on. Boycott Lexmark into bankruptcy for this insult! Don't buyanything they make.

      • Lexmark needs stickers. (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Most consumers don't know about what Lexmark is doing. A person needs to be educated in order to be a customer who makes decisions, not a mindless consumer of goods. To this end I propose those who wish to educate others should get a supply of printable address lables. On these lables should be printed a consumer warning. Be creative. Be funny or serious, but make it simple enough for anyone to understand -- use no technical terms. These printed stickers can then be clandestinely placed on Lexmark prin

      • Re:So, America... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Artifex ( 18308 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @02:51PM (#7138045) Journal
        May I suggest Brother, Canon, HP, Xerox, the list goes on and on.


        Cheap inkjet printers that are nice do exist, just make sure you keep a few things in mind:

        - If you can hold out until mid to late November, you'll see all kinds of holiday and discontinued model sales, through the end of the year.
        - Assuming you get a color inkjet, you probably will want to look for a model with multiple ink cartridges, so you don't have to waste other colors when one color goes.
        - Also, when you get it, make sure that in whatever operating system you use (be very careful you're not buying a "winprinter" if you need it for *NIX, unless you can get an emulation package) you set the driver to print in greyscale by default - most drivers set to color by default, and "black" is not black, but is a blend of the other inks...

        When I bought my HP, it was for $50 from CompUSA, down from $99 - and that was in 1999. Later, I bought a Canon at a lesser discount from Fry's, in 2001, because it uses cartidges that are more expensive to replace all at once, but less expensive overall because I only refill the empty colors. I gave my sister the HP, which is still very nice (and in fact I miss the dedicated envelope slot). HP is so popular that the third party manufacturer prices are probably half the HP price. Canon alternatives, on the other hand, are around two thirds. I have to say, at $10 or $12 total per cartridge, the premium for Canon's name and warranty seems worth it.

        And don't forget, no matter what brand of printer you eventually get, some office supply stores will give you free reams of paper or a small store credit for each empty cartridge you return, because most of these cartridges are specifically designed to be recycled and reused, to the point where the stores bank on making a profit returning these. PLEASE do this, not just for the free paper, but because of the environmental impact... which is another reason not to use Lexmark!
  • What now? Will GM prohibit unauthorized repairs of its patented car components?

    Won't be long. Remember Gammas: Less stitches means more riches. :\

    • In effect, they already do. The requirement for special tools and test equipment for specific subsystems (anti-lock brakes, for example, and air bags) raises the bar significantly for the independent shop. This basically drives business to authorized dealers. For example, the anti-locks in my Chevy mini-van weren't working, and my local mechanic told me he can fix some things on them, but in this case I would have to go to a dealer because he couldn't get some of the required parts. That is unadulterate

  • Market can solve this, buy Canon (Score:5, Insightful)

    by astrashe ( 7452 ) * on Sunday October 05, 2003 @08:08AM (#7136354) Journal
    The market has a solution for this. Buy Canon printers instead of Lexmarks. Canon lets you refill their cartridges, and they let other people sell compatible cartridges. Consequently, even genuine Canon cartridges are cheap.

    Everyone always says that the printers are sold at a subsidized price so the company can get the money back on cartridges, but my Canon i320 only cost me $40 at MicroCenter. I can buy black replacement cartridges for $6.50 at Wal-Mart. That's cool because Wal-Mart is open 24/7 - if I run out of ink at 2am, I can buy more, and buy it for a very reasonable price.

    Lexmark's behavior would be a serious problem if we didn't have any options. But we do, and instead of trying to litigate them into submission, it probably makes more sense to encourage people to check out the prices of cartridges and to examine the policies on cartridges from various manufacturers, and to buy from the good guys (i.e., from Canon).

    I'm always amazed that magazines don't talk about cartridge costs in their printer reviews, but I think that if everyone just got in the habit of including operating costs in any discussion of printers, the problem would go away on its own. For me personally, operating costs are more significant than print speed or even print quality. It's a huge aspect of printing that many reviews ignore completely. And stores have a vested interest in pushing the machines that are expensive to refill - they get a taste of that money as well.

    My i320 was very cheap, although it's not super fast, the output does look very good. So I didn't have to trade off quality. The speed, I think, was sacrificed for the $40 printer cost and not for the low cartridge cost. I'm sure if I had spent more, I would have gotten a faster Canon that would allow me to use cheap ink.

    The market really does tend to solve many of these problems. I'm not sure that litigation is necessary. Just remember, when you go to buy a printer, that Lexmark went to court for the ability to screw you on refill prices. Don't be a sucker, buy from somone else.

    • Re:Market can solve this, buy Canon (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ponxx ( 193567 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @08:33AM (#7136401)
      I think in this case you're right. The market will solve such problems as there are plenty of competitors, and while the entry barriers to any market are high, the startup cost for making printers is not as expensive as some other products (e.g. processors).

      In general, I still think it is good if the legislature makes some rules as to how businesses are allowed to conduct themselves. One cannot propagate free trade but then allow companies to keep markets seperate by DVD region encoding, or by forcing exclusive agreements on dealers.

      The EU has recently ruled against Volkswagen who priced their cars differently in different european countries and then made sure the italian dealers would not sell to german customers.

      So hey, i'm all for free trade, but make sure it applies to all. Let me re-import Nike shoes from China if I want to, let me buy my DVDs where I like, give the consumers the transparency the corporate players demand from their suppliers.

      • Re:Market can solve this, buy Canon (Score:4, Insightful)

        by ScrewMaster ( 602015 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @10:10AM (#7136667)
        Absolutely. There really is no such thing as a totally free market, of course, nor should there be: the government does serve a valuable role in this context. However, if the laws governing business tactics aren't applied with a fairly even hand, then we don't have anything even remotely resembling a a free market. The trouble with the DMCA is that it allows companies that are willing to spend enough money on lawyers to put themselves on higher ground, playing-field-wise. That, among other things, is why the DMCA deserves repeal and the officials responsible for it booted from office. The fact that such a sweeping, totally anti-consumer (and, ultimately, anti-business) law could ever have made it on the books just shows how far out of touch and corrupt Congress has become. All the DMCA is doing is giving businesses enough rope to hang themselves, and us too, by allowing the marketplace to revert to an approximation of lessaiz faire.

        An enlightened capitalist (assuming there are any still living in the U.S.) would recognize that, at the core, laws and policies which are anti-consumer are also anti-business. There's X amount of income to be spent on products: if one company pigs a larger share of the goodies by questionable or illegal tactics then others in the same market will suffer. If they all do it then the consumer suffers, and other unrelated businesses will suffer. That's what is meant by a "level playing field" and is why we have laws governing such things. The buying public is supposed to decide which products deserve success and which fall by the wayside: companies abusing the DMCA to damage legitimate competition are trying to insulate themselves from the normal risks of doing business. My response to that is: TOUGH. If you can't stand the heat get the hell out of my kitchen.

        I'm dead-set against the idea of manufacturers placing arbitrary restrictions on the post-sale uses of their products, with the force of law behind those restrictions. DVD region coding is bad enough, but at least it doesn't affect the average consumer much here in the US (I don't know about Europe.) But blatantly anti-competitive moves like Lexmark's directly hit the consumer's pocketbook. Essentially, this goes to the core of what is considered "property." If an object is your "property" then you control it: you can do with it what you wish. When a vendor tries to force its customers to use products in a certain way (either directly, or indirectly by attacking a third party) then, in effect, that vendor is trying to maintain some level of ownership of that product. I don't buy it, and I won't buy anything from any company that tries to play that game. You want to keep control? Fine, then lease or rent your products, don't sell them.

        The parent is right. Time to kick Lexmark squarely in the wallet. I've never bought a Lexmark product (my personal opinion hovers somewhere between "low end" and "cheap junk") and now I probably never will. It would appear that overall poor quality extends to the very top of their corporate ladder. I'll stick with my HP Deskjet for now, thank you very much.

        • Re:Market can solve this, buy Canon (Score:4, Insightful)

          by JayBlalock ( 635935 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @12:02PM (#7137216)
          When a vendor tries to force its customers to use products in a certain way (either directly, or indirectly by attacking a third party) then, in effect, that vendor is trying to maintain some level of ownership of that product.

          Exactly. I can *only* imagine what Adam Smith would say if he found out about the legalistic games that manufacturers use today to screw over their customers. Of course, people like to hail him as the Objectivist Patron Saint - folks tend to forget that even he conceeded that government intervention is sometimes necessary to prevent monopolies from taking root.

          As far as enlightened capitalists, there aren't any left in major US businesses. Why? Two words: Stock Prices. Companies today are concerned with nothing but keeping their stock prices high, and making their money off the stock market. As long as they can lie to investors and make their company appear stronger than it is, they can do whatever they want to the consumers and it doesn't really matter. It takes spectacular, over-the-top abuses to bring a company down. (ever stop to wonder what Enron could have done had they NOT gone down the path of full-blown evil, and had instead limited themselves to less obvious things?)

          So I'm sure Lexmark will turn around and issue a bunch of glowing press releases and stock reports speaking of how they just won a major legal battle to protect their endangered intellectual property rights, and profits are expected to rise in Q1 (thanks to the further jacking up of cartridge prices), and people will flock to buy their stock.

          • Absolutely. All I have to add to your comment is this: a lot of the blame for the misdeeds of public corporations can, I believe, be laid squarely at the feet of the stockholder. Granted, corporate leadership is legally responsible for any wrongdoing, and should be held strictly accountable (not that I see that happening.) However, by demanding immediate profits at the expense of longer-term growth and stability, and pressuring management to do whatever it takes to increase revenue, stockholders have dir
            • Well, it goes deeper than that. Some days I seriously play around with (in my head, of course) the idea of making stockholders directly responsible for the actions of them company they invest in. No, I'm not kidding. Think about it.

              If I were to give you $500 and say, "Go rob that house. I don't care what you do, just get me their goodies," and you turned around and killed the homeowners, I'd be an accessory to murder at least, if not up on First Degree charges myself. Whenever a stock investor buys s

      • I think in this case you're right. The market will solve such problems as there are plenty of competitors

        Correct -- as long as the following doesn't happen.

        Lexmark to Canon, Epson, HP, Brother, Xerox, Okidata, Samsung: "Hey, why don't we ALL screw our customers the way I do? This way everybody makes bigger bucks! Together we make more than 90% of the printer market. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink."

        It all depends of how many think this is a good idea.
    • For me personally, operating costs are more significant than print speed or even print quality.

      That's why I've always used laser printers whenever possible [ok, not always, before lasers were around I used dot matrices]. My big points on a printer are operating costs, speed, and utter dependability. My dear mother had a cow when I told her I spent ~$1500 on a Color LaserJet 4550 ("you spent fifteen hundred on a WHAT?")...but, after realizing how much cheaper it was, she apologized for her fit of rage...

    • You can say that again (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Kaiwen ( 123401 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @09:02AM (#7136477) Journal
      Buy Canon printers instead of Lexmarks.

      I just replaced my old Canon with a new i550 two weeks ago. The deciding factor was ink cost. Despite good reviews on both HPs and Lexmarks (along with the Canons), throwing in the cost of refills priced everything else out of the market. And not only is Canon ink cheap, the printers make very economical use of it. HPs and Lexmarks are real guzzlers by comparison.

      Until their inks become affordable, I won't even consider other brands.

      Lee Kaiwen, Taiwan

      • Nearly forgot. With all the money I won't be spending on Lexmark ink, I decided I could buy more printer; hence the i550, rather than, say, the z33. I figure ink savings alone will make up the price difference in a couple of months' time. Lee Kaiwen, Taiwan
      • My father had a Lexmark printer, and it ran out of ink. When I looked at the cost of new cartridges, I realized that it would be cheaper to buy a Canon printer than new Lexmark cartridges.

        The entire Canon printer, with cartridges, was less than replacement cartridges for the Lexmark. So we bought a new Canon printer instead.

    • Re:Market can solve this, buy Canon (Score:4, Funny)

      by Cpt_Kirks ( 37296 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @09:07AM (#7136496)
      at Wal-Mart

      Dammit, I forget, is Wal-Mart E-VILLE or not?

      It seems /. should publish a spread sheet so we can keep up.

      • I know you're joking, but *sigh*.

        Look at it this way. Consider Bill Gates (the archetypal /. bogeyman). Bill Gates adds an immortal soul clause to the Microsoft EULA: EVIL. Bill Gates donates a billion dollars to help protect starving third-world AIDS orphans from RIAA lawsuits: GOOD.

        These corporations get some things right and other things wrong. They're run by humans, you know. Even Darl McBride has more than 81% of his DNA in common with us.
    • To put it simply, there are actions which a company is legally allowed to do, but which, in an open market, it would be unwise to do.

      A retailer may be legally entitled to place so many restrictions on returning an item, that most people eventually give up on the attempt. However, their customers would also soon stop buying anything from them as well. Would it be any consolation to a business, as it files for bankruptcy, that it was legally correct?

    • Canon printers are extremely good (Score:4, Insightful)

      by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @09:30AM (#7136548)
      I have an S750 with 4 seperate ink cartridges. Getting replacements is easy and cheap, there are drivers for Windows, Mac & and Linux and the thing has decent performance & quality. Replacements are $4 for a cartridge and I can even use a refill kit if I choose.


      Why the hell anyone would lock themselves into a proprietary solution where the cartridges / printer heads are small or half filled, chipped and cost $60 a pop is beyond me.


      All I can say is Canon kicks ass and Lexmark and the others suck! I would be extremely wary of buying anything from HP, Lexmark or Epson given their track record. Let's hope the EU puts an end to it.

    • Market works wonders in the long term (at least it probably would for cartriges, although it didn't for razor blades). But the change is slow and in the short term (5 years or so) it sometimes needs a helping hand, otherwise we become aggravated by the slow changes. We, humans, tend to not notice gradual changes and are simply too hasty. In 2010 our present problems with RIAA, Lexmark and DMCA will be forgotten, because the solution would be found (unless, of course, it wouldn't be found and the US would tu
    • Try PC World [pcworld.com]. Their ink jet reviews [pcworld.com] break down the price of cartidges, how long they last, and total cost per page (as well as other relevant info) in the detailed descriptions.

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @10:16AM (#7136698)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Let's see... so the FTC creates a Bureau of Printer Sticker regulation. Then it creates a National Laboratory for Printer Sticker Testing. This is placed in the district of the congressman who creates it.

        Then, when you come up with a nifty new printer, you can't sell it until you send it to the Bureau and they test it for a year to measure the usage. Or alternatively, you can put the sticker on after your own certification, and if they get around to checking, you pay a fine. Of course, being a bureaucracy,
    • The market has a solution for this. Buy Canon printers instead of Lexmarks.

      Lexmark deserves to be boycotted forever. I threw my Lexmark out about 6 months ago when they failed to reply to a complaint I filed regarding refills.

      I now use online services exclusively for printing photos (it is *much* cheaper). I guess they must be allowed to use refills. ;)

      Even though we have options, though, it still unsettles me that the court ruled in Lexmark's favour. I don't know what judges are smoking today - $50
    • I'm a linux user, and rarely fire up a windows box, so this begs the question, are there good Linux drivers for Canon printers? I'm far from being an expert on inkjet printers, my lab owns a couple HP 990 inkjets which seem fine for the low volume color printing we do (for monochrome, we use laser jets), although ink is expensive, quality is fine for what we want. On a side note, I've noticed that LinuxPrinting.Org [linuxprinting.org] does not seem to give encouraging reports for Canon and Lexmark drivers.
    • The problem is not that there is no solution, the problem is that this silly judge made a new problem to begin with. Sure, people may move to less restrictive printers as an answer, so what? The problem is that Lexmark:
      1. wanted to do this in the first place.
      2. is getting US government support to do it.

      This support will bring more problems than the jundge can imagine in her silly and slanted brain. Lexmark could not have found a more closed minded and sympathetic jugde. She described the "lock out chip"

  • Yea but. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pharmboy ( 216950 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @08:08AM (#7136355) Journal
    From the original article:
    The rebate program by the Lexington, Ky.-based company offers an upfront discount to consumers who agree to return used cartridges only to Lexmark for refilling or recycling.

    This doesn't change anyone's ability to refill their own cartridges, and ties the rebate to the promise to use only Lexmark authorized supplies. HP has sensors in its newer printers that can tell if you use their supplies or others, which affects your warranty, similar. This is not as big of a deal as it is played out to be here, since you can always choose to not buy Lexmark. They don't have an monopoly, after all.

    This said, its still a crappy ruling, and it IS being appealed. Unfortunately, here in the States, most cases like this are finally settled on appeal, seldom at the first trial. Case in point is the recent attempt to put off the California recall. Our legal system may have plenty of flaws, but eventually it works (most of the time).

    • Re:Yea but. (Score:2, Informative)

      by TheLinuxSRC ( 683475 )
      It is my understanding that the automobile industry tried exactly the same thing with regard to routine maintenance (If you did not get your oil changed at the manufacturers dealership, your warranty was void) and ended up getting in a heap of trouble for it.

      Is this not exactly the same thing?
  • ..yes, lets not allow people to recycle ink cartridges. Crazy..
  • As the fortune so prophetically mentioned.

  • Shhhhhh! (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by Big Nothing ( 229456 )
    "What now? Will GM prohibit unauthorized repairs of its patented car components?"

    Shhhh! Don't give them any ideas!

    On a completely unrelated, offtopic note I have an historic event to report: I was reading up on the HL2 sourcecode leak, and found this news article [beyondhalflife.com]. It just might be the first time in history the two words "informed" and "slashdot" are mentioned in the same sentence.
  • Well, I suppose it's partly preaching to the choir here, but let me break out the Bible and thump it for a bit.
    We can easily trace the increasing power of patents back to a presise historical moment and even a figurehead --Ronald Reagan. The Repblican Revolution of the 1980s brang a whole new court called the Court of Appeals of the Federal Circuit whose sole jurisdiction was patent law.
    This was a reversal of the anti-patent holder legal system that was in existance since the reforms of the 1930s.
    • Has this experiment been to the advantage of the people of the US?

      I'm posting this reply from a five-pound computer with more power than a thousand computers from 1980, running on batteries and able to communicate with nearly any location in the world as long as it's within a couple of hundred feet of my house.

      So yeah, obviously this experiment has been a total failure. Bring back 1980! I can't wait to get back to working on my Apple II.
      • Well, that's a beautiful example and I'll be glad to remind you that the only reason the PC revolution took off was because Xerox was scared to death of a term you rarely hear these days, but that used to be in the headlines nightly in the seventies --consent decrees.
        They didn't share the GUI, the mouse and all that because they were kind hearted capitalists, they did it because they felt they had no choice.
      • So am I, but my computer does not say made in the USA. I bet yours does not either. It may be assembled in the ol' US of A, but most of the parts are not manufactured in the US. Chances are that it is made where these good ol' patent laws do not apply....

        Does it not bother you that even with all these protective measures for all these industries the world is still progressing on. While the government in the ol' USA is prohibiting it's people in favor of corporations we have countries such as China who are

      • because the BIOS was clean room reverse engineered.
        That made the computer far more 'open' then it otherwise would of been. That opened up the market to clones, which drove down the price of computers, made it so the average home could consider getting one and opened up a competitive market. Something a draconian patent system wll not let happen.

  • other patented items I won't be repairing (Score:3, Insightful)

    by HealYourChurchWebSit ( 615198 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @08:19AM (#7136378) Homepage


    Yup ... guess I'll have to do as them ads say ... use only original AC/Delco parts

    Same with my John Deer lawnmower ... no more generic Home-Depot replacement parts for me.

    Same goes for the little screws that hold the legs on my Webber Grill.

    Oh, and I guess I can forget about using them 3rd party vacuum cleaner bags on my Hoover.

    Hmmm ... I can see it now. Whenever I want to burninate a DVD, I'll have to use original Dell media.

    But let's get real here. Does this mean I can't use some indescript spool of thread repair the patented stitching on my ThinkGeek [slashdot.org] shirt?

    Kidding aside. It almost sounds like this judgement essentially says I'm either 'leasing' or 'licensing' the daggone Lexmark printer. In which case, I'll just buy something else.

  • BMW does it (Score:3, Informative)

    by TekkaDon ( 223734 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @08:24AM (#7136390)
    At least for BMW's Mini car here in Spain. If you buy a Mini and try to repair it outside an official BMW/Mini repair shop or install anything that is not officially sanctioned by BMW, your guarantee will be void.

    So with that information, either you buy the car or you don't, but you can't hardly complain if they explain this to you when you buy the car. It's their way or the highway, with another car.

    So, like with the Lexmark (if they also warn the potential buyer), the choice is in the consumer hands.

    j.

    • Re:BMW does it (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Karamchand ( 607798 )
      Right, the choice is in the consumers' hands and the open market could theoretically solve this. The problem many people tend to miss: People are dumb. Very dumb indeed. No, they don't inform themselves about patents, they don't think about refills when buying the printer. Forget it.
    • That's a different case. In my view it is fair enough for them to say you void their warranty if you get un-authorized dealers to work on it.

      The correct analogy would be if they gave you the mini at a EUR 1000 discount if you signed a paper saying you would only get it repaired (and refueled) at BMW garages. In addition they would put a chip in their car that would make it stop if you bought fuel from a non-authorized dealer...

      If you buy a product it's yours, and you should be able to do with it whatever
    • install anything that is not officially sanctioned by BMW, your guarantee will be void

      Which is, basically, not necessarily a bad idea. If you install, say, brakes of inferior quality, and you have an accident - people get killed and BMW is not really responsible for it (assuming, of course, that the brakes are the reason for the accident, and not a drunken driver). With parts for cars you basically get what you pay for.

      Ink, on the other hand, is not much different whether it is expensive or cheap. And

    • Re:BMW does it (Score:4, Informative)

      by kfg ( 145172 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @08:58AM (#7136464)
      Oddly enough this tactic was tried many, many years ago here in America and declared illegal.

      You can have your car serviced anywhere you like, or do it yourself, and it doesn't void your guaruntee.

      This is not to say it won't effect your guaruntee. If you put full race cams and a cheap turbo on your car and blow the engine up that isn't due to faulty design or manufacturing. Buy a new engine.

      But if you have your oil changed at Jiffy-Lube and a con rod fractures that's a defect and they can't get out of it by saying they didn't service the car.

      This doesn't mean that there aren't unscrupulous dealers who will claim otherwise, but that's why they're unscrupulous.

      That's what makes this particular rule somewhat puzzling. It flies in the face of decades of case law and centuries of American legal and cultural tradition.

      Most puzzling about it is the way it overreaches the actual issue at law.

      Ah well. That's why God invented Appellate Courts I suppose.

      KFG

  • Looks like the EFF will have to update their Unintended Consequences: Five Years under the DMCA [slashdot.org] document.

    Will GM prohibit unauthorized repairs of its patented car components?

    I certainly hope not. Take a look at some of their patents here [uspto.gov]. Whole transmissions and other subsystems would have to be completely replaced!!

  • A Decent Printer (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Kevitt ( 640555 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @08:33AM (#7136402)
    I'd be more than willing to spend slightly more money for a printer that is actually built to be used more than 6 months before either falling apart (cannon,lexmark), or being superceded by the same printer under a different model number that uses totally different replacement cartridges (HP).

    Look at the crap that printer manufacturers are pawning off on people nowdays. You got your printer selling at like $70US, and refills selling at $50US. It just makes no sense. If you're like me and only print when absolutely necessary, then by the time your ink runs out you might just as well buy a whole new printer and forget about the new cartridges altogether.
    • You aren't getting the right printer, then.

      I'd reccomend the HP Deskjet 6122 [amazon.com], although I beleive its been discontinued (although it is still in a few retail stores). The quality is excellent, its fast, and it comes with a duplexor. Not only that, but it uses their older catridges that are filled with more ink.
    • For us, it's more cost effective to buy a new printer when the ink cartridge runs out. Seriously.
  • The judgement seems to only really deal with the situation where the original cartridge is bought under the prebate program and I don't think (IANAL) it applies to a cartridge bought sans the prebate.

    Now, if Lexmark only sells cartridges under that program, then we're screwed. But if not, just pay the extra $30 and your fine.

    (Not the greatest of options I guess, but the alternative seems worse)

  • oh, this is BS (Score:5, Insightful)

    by erc ( 38443 ) <ercNO@SPAMpobox.com> on Sunday October 05, 2003 @08:45AM (#7136429) Homepage
    This is nonsense. The original poster obviously didn't read the ruling. "The rebate program by the Lexington, Ky.-based company offers an upfront discount to consumers who agree to return used cartridges only to Lexmark for refilling or recycling." What's wrong with that? The court is just upholding the company's right to offer an incentive to customers. No DMCA challenge implied, gang. Read the ruling before you post, huh?

    • Re:oh, this is BS (Score:2, Insightful)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      Of course it is legal. And the customer might even have an informed choice on whether to take the rebate of not. It is just another thing that confuses consumers and is marginally deceitful.

      The problem is the printer will be advertised at it's price after rebate. At the retail outlet the full terms may not be disclosed until after the sale is completed. It is possible the consumer may not understand the full terms until after he or she has used the printer.

      Yes, it is the consumer's responsibility to

    • what's wrong with that? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by twitter ( 104583 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @12:15PM (#7137266) Homepage Journal
      "The rebate program by the Lexington, Ky.-based company offers an upfront discount to consumers who agree to return used cartridges only to Lexmark for refilling or recycling."

      Oh, that's easy. Doctrine of first sale. If you really sold it to me, I can do what I want. If you are leasing it to me, that's another story because you and I agreed that you own the thing. If you don't care that I throw the thing in the trash all your other conditions are bogus.

      Your "prebate", which is essentialy fair market value for your outrageously patented printer cartrige is a farce as well. The root problem here is that Lexmark can get patents on their toner cartridges that effectively keeps anyone else in the world from making them. The most "innovative" thing the company has done is add a lock out chip. By charging an outrageous amount for normal new cartidges that no one else may make and convincing purchasers that they don't really own the cartidge, Lexmark seeks to suck as much money from their users as possible by keeping them from doing what most normal people would do: put tonner into a perfectly usable part.

      I will never buy or recomend a Lexmark printer. They have always been the worst on the market. I suspect it's because the company has such poor morals. The whole thing is dishonest and no on should do business with dishonest people.

  • ""Because of its patents, Lexmark has the right to impose the sale of its patented product""

    Imagine a future Palm EBook device that, thanks to a deal with the publisher, only lets you read Random House/etc (Time Warner) tomes on it.

    Someone already mentioned GM. How about the GM car that only takes Chevron gasoline?
  • Ink prices should be regulated by government like gasoline.
    Lets stop this Ink-price gouging conspiracy!
  • These days, printer cost should be measured almost solely by the price of it's consumables. For a little more accuracy, you may optionally add the initial price of the printer.

    Isn't Lexmark's total cost of ownership (TCO) of consumer-class products way more than it's higher-quality competitors? Then why do people buy them? Because the REAL costs are purposely hidden by Lexmark (and some others in the industry).

    Yeah yeay - "Buyer Beware". Bullshit. A company the size of Lexmark should be more respecta

  • Boycott Lexmark (Score:5, Informative)

    by gvc ( 167165 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @09:08AM (#7136502)
    I have boycotted Lexmark for some time due to their gouging on refills. I am also proud author of an expose [uwaterloo.ca] on how to use Samsung cartridges in a Lexmark E210 printer, at 2/3 the cost.

    I wonder if use of a Philips screwdriver violates the DMCA? The modification involves removing a tab in the printer that matches a slot in the cartridge casting. I suppose this could be considered a digital rights management device.
  • This is, in theory, the strongest point in favor of capitalism. A company starts doing something that pisses of their customers, their customers can start buying from a competitor instead.

    I recently (yesterday) helped my mother in law buy a new printer. The store had a very basic Lexmark for under $35 that would perfectly suit her needs. Next up was an HP that was about 7 dollars more. This is a for woman who gets extremely upset because her gas bill is two dollars more than she thinks it should be.

    • I agree with you here. I purchased a HP scanner a little while back which claimed SCSI support for Apple and PC. After fighting with it for some time I contacted HP and was told I needed USB for the document feeder, even though the box claimed that it was SCSI compatible. My system at the time had no USB support but I could live with the manual feed for a while.

      Recently I bought a new HP scanner. (The old one now works with SANE with FreeBSD...too many problem with their drivers). I took it out if the box.

  • I came from the Inquirer to this /. debate tonight...

    What a nice company Lexmark is! [theinquirer.net]

  • ...I bought an Epson. I bought the Epson C82 as it was one of the highest rated at Linuxprinting in it's class, as it is fully supported in Linux.

    Before I had some POS Lexmark that was free with an ISP account; moral - you get what you pay for.

    CB
  • Consumers have been focussed on low up-front costs for years, the high cost of ink and paper are well-known but rarely figure in buying decisions.

    It's not even as if people are kept in the dark, this has been common knowledge for as long as ink jet printers have been around.

    And yet people choose cheap printers from HP and Lexmark ignoring the long term ink and paper costs... when companies like Xerox and Canon offer much cheaper ink, but slightly more expensive printers.

    It's a classic choice facing consumers: low-upfront plus high maintenance, or high upfront and low maintenance. There are many examples:

    - low-energy light bulbs (do you buy these?)
    - better insulation in your home
    - fuel-efficient cars
    - season tickets for transport
    - freezing food in the summer when it's cheap
    - etc.

    The fact is that people value choice, very highly. And when it comes to printers, many people prefer to pay more for ink if they can get away with lower upfront costs.

    The manufacturers have generally responded by subsiding printers with ink, and their cartridges are designed to support this business model. You don't have to like it, and we apparently still have choices, but it's a valid business model and people who complain are just being fanciful. Ink is cheap, yes, but printer technology is not: someone has to pay, and it's either in the form of $199 printers and $5 ink, or $45 printers and $25 ink.

    If my car only cost $995 new, I'd be very happy to accept restrictions on the spare parts I can use. Fact is, cars and printers are not sold on the same basis.
  • It's called the Magneson-Moss Warranty Act [mlmlaw.com]. Look at the "Tie-In Sales" Provisions" part.

    Generally, tie-in sales provisions are not allowed. Such a provision would require a purchaser of the warranted product to buy an item or service from a particular company to use with the warranted product in order to be eligible to receive a remedy under the warranty. The following are examples of prohibited tie-in sales provisions.

    Why we let the computer industry get away with the same crap is beyond me.

  • Too bad it's weekend. (Score:3, Informative)

    by SharpFang ( 651121 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @10:15AM (#7136693) Homepage Journal
    ...but you can still call the "dealer" line.
    Just tell them what you think...

    http://www.lexmark.com/US/contact_us_detail/0,13 50 ,MTkyfDE=,00.html

    Contact Us

    Call Us

    Ordering parts and supplies
    1-800-LEXMARK or 1-800-539-6275
    Monday - Friday 9 a.m. - 8 p.m. EST
    Closed weekends

    Questions before you buy
    1-800-LEXMARK or 1-800-539-6275
    Monday - Friday 9 a.m. - 8 p.m. EST
    Closed weekends

    http://www.lexmark.com/US/contact_us_detail/0,13 50 ,NTl8MQ==,00.html

    Contact Us

    Authorized Lexmark Dealers

    Support Lines

    Single point of contact for new products & information, including: Presales, Ordering, & the Technical Support Center.

    Phone: for Inkjet Printers
    1-800-332-4120

    Phone: for Laser Printers
    1-800-LEXMARK (1-800-539-6275)

    Technical Support

    Dealer can call the Technical Support Center to get help on resolving technical issues involving Lexmark printers.

    LexFax For Dealers (Fax on Demand System)

    FAQs and Product Information via facsimile.

    1-800-4LEXFAX
    (1-800-453-9323)
    + Dealer ID

    24 hours
    7 days/week

    Warranty Claims

    Warranty reimbursement for Authorized Dealers.

    1-800-253-9627

    Mon - Fri
    8:30am - 7pm EST
    Closed Weekends
  • No Lexmark, ever!
  • I bought one fo their networked laser printers at a computer swap show about 6 months ago for $80, and its worked great. It even came with a full cartridge. It was pretty dusty, but an hour with a damp, soapy cloth made it look like brand new! It had about 35K pages on it when I got it, and it looks as if it would last about 3 times as long pretty easily.

    Cost per page so far has been less than a penny!

    So, Lexmark really does provide value!

  • Moot Point Anyway (Score:2, Insightful)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 )
    If you haven't noticed, the complexity and integrated-ness of modern equipment makes its pretty hard for one to do repairs without OEM parts.. In most *any* industry.

    When was the last time you *repaired* a formatter board, or a rear axle, or an electric motor... Bet most of you haven't ever done it.. few even know how.

    Sure you can often replace the part, but its most likely either a new OEM part, or a 3rd party refurb of an original part..

    This legal wrangling only helps solidifies things, but its heading

  • GM has the right to restrict competition (Score:3, Interesting)

    by konmaskisin ( 213498 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @12:14PM (#7137257) Journal
    as much as microsoft does - i.e. yes they will start to restrict rights. The recent judgement against a garage door opening firm (that siad competitors were free to creat interoperable and add-on components) was a blip in history. It will be overturned, or defeated by simple encryption. If competitors reverse engineer the equipment they will have to circumvent and thus will be criminally liable.

    The trend (unmistakable) is towards less innovation and competition. The DMCA has enshrined mediocrity: any piece of crap tool (but one with half-assed encryption) can establish a non-competitive monopoly and be protected under law. Ther used to be laws *AGAINST* this.

    America is less capitalist and less free market then people think - and the DMCA is the most draconian and totalitarian anti-free market legislation yet devised. The US is more like Britain during the period when its empire began to decline: still the big cheese but soon to be blown out of the water!

    Start up tech firms can look to Russian, India, and China as massive markets that are gaining on the US.

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