A computer components & hardware forum. HardwareBanter

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Go Back   Home » HardwareBanter forum » General Hardware & Peripherals » Printers
Site Map Home Register Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

Epson wins litigation - aftermarket carts already in short supply



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old August 30th 07, 08:55 AM posted to comp.periphs.printers
anonymous
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4
Default Epson wins litigation - aftermarket carts already in short supply

Today my wholesale supplier of aftermarket inkjet cartridges for my
Epson 760, 860 and 1160 printers told me that they are out of carts
for these printers and won't have a source of supply available until
some time in October. It seems that quite a number of aftermarket cart
manufacturers settled Epson's litigation and agreed to bow out of the
business. See
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...facturers.html
for more information. Don't ask who the suppler is, they only sell to
resellers, not to end users. Please don't reply back to me
personally, I don't hae the time to get involved in lengthy
interchange acout this issue, but perhaps it's time for the thousands
of us who have been successfully using aftermarket carts for years to
tell Epson just what we think of their litigation.

  #2  
Old August 31st 07, 12:45 AM posted to comp.periphs.printers
measekite
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,433
Default Epson wins litigation - aftermarket carts already in short supply



anonymous wrote:
Today my wholesale supplier of aftermarket inkjet cartridges for my
Epson 760, 860 and 1160 printers told me that they are out of carts
for these printers and won't have a source of supply available until
some time in October. It seems that quite a number of aftermarket cart
manufacturers settled Epson's litigation and agreed to bow out of the
business. See


Wow, this is great news. Maybe the stock market will go up soon.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...facturers.html
for more information. Don't ask who the suppler is, they only sell to
resellers, not to end users. Please don't reply back to me
personally, I don't hae the time to get involved in lengthy
interchange acout this issue, but perhaps it's time for the thousands
of us who have been successfully using aftermarket carts for years to
tell Epson just what we think of their litigation.


I will give them a call and congratulate them on a job well done.
  #3  
Old August 31st 07, 01:17 PM posted to comp.periphs.printers
Taliesyn
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 306
Default Epson wins litigation - aftermarket carts already in short supply

Jim Wright wrote:

anonymous wrote in
ups.com:


Today my wholesale supplier of aftermarket inkjet cartridges for my
Epson 760, 860 and 1160 printers told me that they are out of carts
for these printers and won't have a source of supply available until
some time in October. It seems that quite a number of aftermarket cart
manufacturers settled Epson's litigation and agreed to bow out of the
business.




As I use this model cartridge I verified several popular online sellers in
the US, Canada, UK, eBay, and my own supplier. There is no shortage.

Nice try. ;-)



Agreed. The post doesn't make sense anyway. Suddenly there's a shortage
of cartridges because manufacturers have dropped out and then
miraculously they will reappear again in October. Comical to say the
least. Most likely another vain attempt by the resident troll.

-Taliesyn
  #5  
Old September 3rd 07, 02:14 AM posted to comp.periphs.printers
Arthur Entlich
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,229
Default Epson wins litigation - aftermarket carts already in short supply

It seems to me it is time for those who live in countries which have
anti-trust laws (I know the US, Canada and the UK each have some form,
and I assume many other "industrialized" countries do as well), to start
writing your elected officials and demand that the assorted attorney
generals or whatever the title your country's officials keep for those
who are responsible to uphold such laws, to become active in protecting
consumers from this type of activity.

Several inkjet companies have been using (in my opinion abusing) the
courts to get injunctions on patent infringements on inkjet and laser
cartridges to try to protect their interests on consumables.

I have no problem with patent protection, provided that the patent isn't
just a method of blocking the function of 3rd party consumable products.

To date a number of printer companies have incorporated devices and
designs which force 3rd party manufactures to mimic in order for the 3rd
party consumable to even function within the printer. These devices
often serve no valid or end user useful function other than to prevent
3rd party manufacturers from designing consumable products which will
work with the printers. Such designs should not be protected under
patent law, when their design is for eliminating 3rd party competitive
product from being manufactured and distributed.

These companies should be forced, with proper expert rebuttal witnesses
that their patents have enough useful value to the end user to justify
their being upheld when doing so restricts the manufacture of 3rd party
product which breaks these monopolies.

The only way this is going to change, which is important for the
environment, reducing waste, reducing costs, improving competition, etc,
and to stop wasting costs on R&D and design into anti-consumer designs
which do little or nothing to improve the user experience and in some
cases make it much worse is to both involve your political
representatives and to look at alternatives which do not make refilling
impossible or a crime, or those products which allow for higher
accusation cost while lowering the consumable costs.

Our political reps are most likely ignorant of what the courts are
deciding, and we need to tell them these policies are ruinous to our
environment and are monopolistic in their results.

This situation will only get worse if we do not act, as the
manufacturers become more brazen.

If you care about the costs of running your printer, the environmental
impact of the "toss away" business model, or the design defects that are
proving you with little to no benefit but further complicating and in
some cases making the product fail, your input to your reps may be one
way to set things straight.


Art

anonymous wrote:
Today my wholesale supplier of aftermarket inkjet cartridges for my
Epson 760, 860 and 1160 printers told me that they are out of carts
for these printers and won't have a source of supply available until
some time in October. It seems that quite a number of aftermarket cart
manufacturers settled Epson's litigation and agreed to bow out of the
business. See
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...facturers.html
for more information. Don't ask who the suppler is, they only sell to
resellers, not to end users. Please don't reply back to me
personally, I don't hae the time to get involved in lengthy
interchange acout this issue, but perhaps it's time for the thousands
of us who have been successfully using aftermarket carts for years to
tell Epson just what we think of their litigation.

  #6  
Old September 3rd 07, 02:29 AM posted to comp.periphs.printers
Arthur Entlich
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,229
Default Epson wins litigation - aftermarket carts already in short supply

I replied to this posting as though it was legitimate. It may not be,
but the problem does exist. Manufacturers of inkjet printers are
winning injunctions against many 3rd party suppliers, and I have read of
several just last week with Epson products from legitimate sources.

The mechanisms are the same regardless of the veracity of this
particular posting below, the availability will suffer as more and more
3rd party manufacturers are loaded with fines and other injunctions
which make the cost of continuing not worthwhile.

If we want our rights as consumers to be protected, so we can purchase
3rd party cartridges or ink and fill our printers with them, we need to
get the countries which have such legislation to start looking carefully
at the Court decisions coming down and their validity.


Art



Taliesyn wrote:

Jim Wright wrote:

anonymous wrote in
ups.com:

Today my wholesale supplier of aftermarket inkjet cartridges for my
Epson 760, 860 and 1160 printers told me that they are out of carts
for these printers and won't have a source of supply available until
some time in October. It seems that quite a number of aftermarket cart
manufacturers settled Epson's litigation and agreed to bow out of the
business.





As I use this model cartridge I verified several popular online
sellers in the US, Canada, UK, eBay, and my own supplier. There is no
shortage.

Nice try. ;-)




Agreed. The post doesn't make sense anyway. Suddenly there's a shortage
of cartridges because manufacturers have dropped out and then
miraculously they will reappear again in October. Comical to say the
least. Most likely another vain attempt by the resident troll.

-Taliesyn

  #7  
Old September 3rd 07, 04:12 AM posted to comp.periphs.printers
Richard Steinfeld[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 239
Default Epson wins litigation - aftermarket carts already in short supply

Arthur Entlich wrote:
It seems to me it is time for those who live in countries which have
anti-trust laws (I know the US, Canada and the UK each have some form,
and I assume many other "industrialized" countries do as well), to start
writing your elected officials and demand that the assorted attorney
generals or whatever the title your country's officials keep for those
who are responsible to uphold such laws, to become active in protecting
consumers from this type of activity.


Here in the US, "restraint of trade" is illegal. To me, that's the core
of this situation. However, during the term of a patent, the original
manufacturer has certain rights that are enforceable. Manufacturers
(including drug companies) keep creating new shucks and dives around
their existing products, often concealed by "new and exciting features,"
which give rise to a whole new set of design patents that serve to
squelch competition for another cycle.

Licensing rights to others can be a civilized way for a manufacturer to
maintain control and also allow a reasonable degree competition. Philips
has done this twice; first in the case of the Compact Cassette (audio),
and later with the Compact Disc. The model has been used, too, with the
VHS Video Cassette, which left monopolistic control freak Sony dead in
the dust as the open market fostered competition and universal
acceptance. Philips became a minor manufacturer of their own technology,
but they could sit on the sidelines and collect small unit royalties,
making a ton of money off volume as their open system ensured universal
acceptance. I don't know if this model could work with printers.

Think of it: what would happen if one company developed a good
ink/head/firmware system, and licensed it out to all comers who would
honor the standards, pay a small license fee, and undersell all the
slezeballs who practice their established, unethical, business model.

One thing that I expect here in the USA: it's been obvious to me that
our present Administration and their Republican enablers can be counted
on to carry the water for Goliath against David virtually every single
time. Especially when Goliath has been a loyal campaign contributor.

Time for a big change?

Richard
  #8  
Old September 3rd 07, 05:25 AM posted to comp.periphs.printers
zakezuke
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 296
Default Epson wins litigation - aftermarket carts already in short supply

On Sep 2, 8:47 pm, Barry Watzman wrote:
"If we want our rights as consumers to be protected ...."

The manufacturers do have some rights also. I understand not liking it,
it makes things more expensive for us as consumers. But the
manufacturers did put in huge up-front engineering effort to invent
these things, and the did get patents on their products.


Patents on the products, yes. Patents on ink, sure. But the fact is,
a printer is a physical device owned by the consumer. It's not leased
or rented.

Ford for example can't make a car and require the buyer to buy "Ford"
motor oil. That's what the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act addresses, this
can not be a condition of the warranty.

This is the right as a consumer which needs to be protected.
Consumables are priced so far in excess of reason it's not even
funny. There is a viable alternative, buying bulk ink / buying 3rd
party cartridges, but the manufactures equip their devices with
countermeasures to prevent a practice which is perfectly legal.


  #9  
Old September 3rd 07, 07:04 AM posted to comp.periphs.printers
zakezuke
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 296
Default Epson wins litigation - aftermarket carts already in short supply

On Sep 2, 8:23 pm, Barry Watzman wrote:

The printer manufacturers have a RIGHT, within certain limits, to create
printers that can only use that manufacturer's consumables.

And we, as consumers, have a RIGHT .... not to buy them.


Printer manufacturers don't have this right.

If they did, then you are locked into buying supplies from a
manufacturer, at their prices. Starbucks has no right to require you
use Starbucks coffee in their coffee/espresso makers, GE can not
require you use their lights in their lamps, Toastmaster has no right
to require you put their toast in their toasters. This is not to say
these companies can't offer consumables, but this can not be a
condition to purchase or use their products.

Apple got away with this for a while to some degree... in order to use
apple utilities on CD-roms and hard discs, for a time you had to buy
apple labeled hard drives. They had NO right to prevent me from
buying something identical from someone else, but during the system
7/8 days I would have to buy 3rd party software to format and mount
the drives.

We as consumers have the "choice" to buy products, and use them how we
please. Use of 3rd party ink is a form of protest, until such time as
the printer manufacturers understand that they need to adjust their
business model.

The whole purpose of patents is to keep competitors from making a
product that you invented and patented. That design is your
intellectual property, and you have every right to keep someone else
from making it. Monopoly? EXACTLY ... that is the whole purpose of the
patent law, to grant a LEGAL (but temporary) monopoly to someone who
invents something.


You can patent a type of ink. But you can not patent ink it self, ink
is a prior invention. You can create a better ink, but that does not
prevent a company from manufacturing another type of ink.


  #10  
Old September 3rd 07, 08:29 AM posted to comp.periphs.printers
Arthur Entlich
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,229
Default Epson wins litigation - aftermarket carts already in short supply

Not according to my reading of the current laws. Consumables and their
containers which are required to make the product function are being
tied to the printer, which is illegal in US and other laws. These laws
were designed exactly to prevent the types of monopolies or requirements
to use consumables of a specific manufacturers.

These laws were used to stop car manufacturers from requiring that
people purchase their brands of consumables to maintain their warranty
clauses. The issue is most of the inkjet cartridge patents involved are
bogus and are only there to protect the sales of their inks. If Epson,
for instance, allowed you to shut off the ink monitor completely to
allow you to use 3rd party ink cartridges, so you "lost" the minimum
benefit they provided, that might be acceptable, since in the case of
the Epson printers, running the printer head dry isn't fatal, but
forcing you to use their cartridge system to have the printer even
operate is bogus. In fact, it is probably why Epson has been unable to
get the chip resetters off the market.

Canon is even worse in this area. Their new cartridges are
"unbreakable" in terms of the code, and those printers will indeed
develop failed heads if the ink runs out, and they had a fully
functional optical system on earlier models and replaced it with a chip
that cannot be reset. You can turn the monitor off, but you must be
diligent not to allow the ink levels to run dry, or the heads will fail.
Again, another bogus patent to provide a system that was not required
for the product to function well, as an alternative technology was
already working.


For a host of reasons, these manufacturers should be forced to alter the
approach they have taken. Perhaps the answer is for someone to come up
with a competitive model and try to educate people to pay more for the
printers so that the ink doesn't end up the only profit engine. If the
acts can't do it, the printer manufacturers should be slapped with a
nice levy on every printer that ends up discarded in the landfill. The
environmental impact caused by the current business model is not
sustainable.

The Sherman Act, as does the updated Clayton act states:

http://www.stolaf.edu/people/becker/...s/345us594.htm

(b) A "tying" arrangement violates § 1 of the Sherman Act when a seller
enjoys a monopolistic position in the market for the "tying" product and
a substantial volume of commerce in the "tied" product is restrained.
International Salt Co. v. United States, 332 U.S. 392. Pp. 608-609.


http://www.oag.state.ny.us/business/antitrust.html

TYING ARRANGEMENTS

An illegal tie-in occurs when a seller with market power over one
product (the "tying product") will only sell it to buyers who agree to
buy another product (the "tied product").

Example

Wonderdrug Co. has developed and patented a revolutionary new drug that
can cure many people in mental institutions and allow them to return to
their homes. In order to obtain this drug, Wonderdrug forces a patient
to also obtain a very expensive, regularly scheduled blood test from a
subsidiary company. In fact, the blood test could be performed by any
company or hospital with no impact on the drug's effectiveness. This
tying arrangement is unlawful, and would not be allowed under antitrust law.


Do some research. The law, if properly interpreted, is on the side of
the 3rd party ink and cartridge providers, it is just that the antitrust
laws have been ignored of late... as others have suggested, there is a
political climate that is having its influence right now.

Art


Barry Watzman wrote:

"I have no problem with patent protection, provided that the patent
isn't just a method of blocking the function of 3rd party consumable
products."

You should have no problem with it even if the patent IS "just a method
of blocking the function of 3rd party consumable products"

The whole purpose of patents is to keep competitors from making a
product that you invented and patented. That design is your
intellectual property, and you have every right to keep someone else
from making it. Monopoly? EXACTLY ... that is the whole purpose of the
patent law, to grant a LEGAL (but temporary) monopoly to someone who
invents something.

[But, at the same time, let us note that refilling an ink cartridge, in
and of itself, never violates a patent. Of course, there is the matter
of the fact that simply refilling a cartridge, if that cartridge has a
"chip" in it, may not create a working cartridge ... that is another
matter.]

The printer manufacturers have a RIGHT, within certain limits, to create
printers that can only use that manufacturer's consumables.

And we, as consumers, have a RIGHT .... not to buy them.


Arthur Entlich wrote:

It seems to me it is time for those who live in countries which have
anti-trust laws (I know the US, Canada and the UK each have some form,
and I assume many other "industrialized" countries do as well), to
start writing your elected officials and demand that the assorted
attorney generals or whatever the title your country's officials keep
for those who are responsible to uphold such laws, to become active in
protecting consumers from this type of activity.

Several inkjet companies have been using (in my opinion abusing) the
courts to get injunctions on patent infringements on inkjet and laser
cartridges to try to protect their interests on consumables.

I have no problem with patent protection, provided that the patent
isn't just a method of blocking the function of 3rd party consumable
products.

To date a number of printer companies have incorporated devices and
designs which force 3rd party manufactures to mimic in order for the
3rd party consumable to even function within the printer. These
devices often serve no valid or end user useful function other than to
prevent 3rd party manufacturers from designing consumable products
which will work with the printers. Such designs should not be
protected under patent law, when their design is for eliminating 3rd
party competitive product from being manufactured and distributed.

These companies should be forced, with proper expert rebuttal
witnesses that their patents have enough useful value to the end user
to justify their being upheld when doing so restricts the manufacture
of 3rd party product which breaks these monopolies.

The only way this is going to change, which is important for the
environment, reducing waste, reducing costs, improving competition,
etc, and to stop wasting costs on R&D and design into anti-consumer
designs which do little or nothing to improve the user experience and
in some cases make it much worse is to both involve your political
representatives and to look at alternatives which do not make
refilling impossible or a crime, or those products which allow for
higher accusation cost while lowering the consumable costs.

Our political reps are most likely ignorant of what the courts are
deciding, and we need to tell them these policies are ruinous to our
environment and are monopolistic in their results.

This situation will only get worse if we do not act, as the
manufacturers become more brazen.

If you care about the costs of running your printer, the environmental
impact of the "toss away" business model, or the design defects that
are proving you with little to no benefit but further complicating and
in some cases making the product fail, your input to your reps may be
one way to set things straight.


Art

anonymous wrote:

Today my wholesale supplier of aftermarket inkjet cartridges for my
Epson 760, 860 and 1160 printers told me that they are out of carts
for these printers and won't have a source of supply available until
some time in October. It seems that quite a number of aftermarket cart
manufacturers settled Epson's litigation and agreed to bow out of the
business. See
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...facturers.html

for more information. Don't ask who the suppler is, they only sell to
resellers, not to end users. Please don't reply back to me
personally, I don't hae the time to get involved in lengthy
interchange acout this issue, but perhaps it's time for the thousands
of us who have been successfully using aftermarket carts for years to
tell Epson just what we think of their litigation.

 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Epson wins ITC ruling measekite Printers 14 April 9th 07 07:16 AM
Epson battles the aftermarket compatibles and wins Yianni Printers 6 November 4th 06 08:33 PM
Epson C88 - what aftermarket inks? Arthur Entlich Printers 1 July 20th 06 11:04 PM
Epson C88 - what aftermarket inks? Martin Printers 0 July 19th 06 08:16 AM
Why are northwood CPU's in such short supply? CPU Guy Intel 7 June 28th 05 12:46 PM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 03:56 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 HardwareBanter.
The comments are property of their posters.