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from the seems-pretty-black-and-white-to-me dept.
A corporate squabble over printer toner cartridges doesn't sound particularly glamorous, and the phrase "patent exhaustion" is probably already causing your eyes to glaze over. However, these otherwise boring topics are the crux of a Supreme Court case that will answer a question with far-reaching impact for all consumers: Can a company that sold you something use its patent on that product to control how you choose to use after you buy it?
The case in question is Impression Products, Inc v Lexmark International, Inc, came before the nation's highest court on Tuesday.
As with many SCOTUS disputes, Lexmark is a devil-in-the-details case that could have wide-ranging implications for basically everyone who ever buys anything — so, all of us.
Here's the background: Lexmark makes printers. Printers need toner in order to print, and Lexmark also happens to sell toner.
Then there's Impression Products, a third-party company makes and refills toner cartridges for use in printers, including Lexmark's.
Lexmark, however, doesn't want that; if you use third-party toner cartridges, that's money that Lexmark doesn't make. So it sued, which brings us to the legal chain that ended up at the Supreme Court.
Source: Consumerist
(Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday March 27 2017, @05:45PM (6 children)
I guess the Lexmark solution will be to sell printers with built in ink cartridges that can't be replaced. So once you run out of ink you have to toss it all away and buy a new printer. Utterly wasteful but at least they won't have competition.
Except that's NOT their business model. Their entire business model depends on the "razor/razor blades" model, i.e., where you sell the razor at cost (or even at a loss) and then charge ridiculous prices for the custom razor blades. Lexmark wouldn't make money selling printers that are tossed after one use. They make money by fooling stupid people into thinking, "Wow -- I get a printer for 1/4 of the price of their competitor," but then when they run out of ink, they realize that they now are paying multiple times the amount for ink that they would be paying for the competitor.
Of course, many people do balk at this, and thus cheap Lexmark printers tend to be tossed in the garbage a lot too. But they hook enough people into buying a couple new ink cartridges to justify their business model. But if they started selling "one-off" printers with no replaceable ink cartridge, they'd have to raise their printer prices and their business model would no longer work. (Hence their current lawsuit, because if they can't keep making money off of selling ink, their business model fails... and it should, but they're trying hard to keep it from failing.)
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday March 27 2017, @07:58PM (4 children)
Given my extremely low print volume, I tent to buy a $30 printer (with a free scanner attached), and when it's empty throw it away and buy a new one. Replacement ink costs more than a new printer.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 4, Insightful) by chromas on Monday March 27 2017, @09:18PM (2 children)
Get yourself a laser printer. B&Ws can be had for under $60 and you don't have to worry about nozzles getting clogged up when you don't use it for awhile.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday March 27 2017, @10:14PM (1 child)
Plan too eventually. Haven't needed a printer in a couple years though. I've actually gone into Office Max I think twice to pay a few cents for a few copies rather than buy another printer.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday March 28 2017, @03:54PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 28 2017, @09:02AM
Don't throw it away! Break it apart and sell the gears, step motors, power supplies, circuitry, ... building a robot is a popular pastime nowadays.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday March 28 2017, @03:48AM
I know. I stated that it wasn't their business plan. But they could change, if they can design a printer with all things included that prints X copies and that can be made cheap enough they could sell the disposable printer, print-n-forget. That could be a "viable" model to, if stuff is just cheap enough.