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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: 2) by jmorris on Monday March 27 2017, @09:20PM (2 children)
No, I'm proposing that the customers of these products come together and, since the manufacturers have no incentive to, propose a standard which they would all then mandate on their suppliers. In exactly the same way almost everything that gets standardized is done, one end or the other of the supply chain sees a benefit in ending a bunch of incompatible parts and standardizes. The only government mandate would be in the fact the U.S. government happens to buy a hell of a lot of toner for all the paperwork it smothers us with.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 27 2017, @09:34PM (1 child)
Tomato tomato
Using financial clout to force a standard is basically the same thing. It just makes you feel better because it is done with "market forces" and we all know you believe "market is God".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 28 2017, @07:55AM
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