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posted by cmn32480 on Monday March 27 2017, @05:04PM   Printer-friendly
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


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  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday March 27 2017, @08:09PM (1 child)

    by Thexalon (636) on Monday March 27 2017, @08:09PM (#484845)

    What Lexmark, and quite a few other companies, are really after is the First Sale Doctrine. That's the legal principle that once you buy something, it's yours, and you can do whatever you damn well please with it.

    There's similar disputes going on related to John Deere, because they're doing everything they can to make it impossible for farmers to fix their own tractors, claiming that John Deere doesn't sell tractors, it sells perpetual licenses for tractors, and any modifications that might affect the software of the tractor would be an EULA violation. If Lexmark wins here, it's entirely possible that it would also allow (for example) Ford to sue every single auto repair shop that ever worked on a Ford-manufactured vehicle because they didn't pay Ford for the proper licensing to work on Ford vehicles.

    The whole thing is ridiculous, but it may very well turn out legal. I'm kinda curious what SCOTUS nominee Neil Gorsuch thinks about it, although I'm pretty sure nobody bothered to ask him.

    --
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  • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 27 2017, @08:53PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 27 2017, @08:53PM (#484865)

    I'm kinda curious what SCOTUS nominee Neil Gorsuch thinks about it, although I'm pretty sure nobody bothered to ask him.

    Doesn't matter if he was asked because he would not have given an answer one way or the other.