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 Anonymous Coward on Monday March 27 2017, @08:02PM (2 children)
And businesses lament all the time why they are subject to so much regulation.
This is a perfect example of why. Because they can not be trusted to not try to rip off their customers. The reason they are subject to so much regulation is because they did stupid stuff in the past, a sufficient number of times, that a politician got interested in correcting that stupid thing, and a new regulation saying "don't do stupid thing X" was born.
The printer makers would scream "too much regulation" from your suggestion. But as it is clear that they can not be trusted ($9,000 per ounce ink jet printer inks anyone?) your suggestion is exactly what should happen to them. Force them into a pure commodity market and be done with them.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 27 2017, @09:34PM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 28 2017, @03:46AM
The problem isn't patent protection in general, it is the stupid stuff the gets approved for protection. The guy who invented the printer cartridge deserved a patent. Every other container of ink/toner used in printing is just a refinement on the original idea and shouldn't be eligible for a patent. If the patent office wouldn't give so many patents we would not have this problem.