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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 dyingtolive on Tuesday March 28 2017, @05:48AM
I had the 1100, but it died pretty spectacularly. Not much I could do to bring it back. Some of us aren't lucky to have such good Goodwills around. I had to buy my laser printer retail. It's a pretty nice one, and color, but I'm sure Samsung is just as eager to put the hammer down on toner refill as Lexmark is here, and mine is a new enough to be directly affected by that. Guess I'll have to stock up while I can.
Inkjets are bullshit though. I totally agree. I switched my girlfriend's default printer away from her all-in-one to my laser printer. The first print she was pissed because she didn't know what I did. By whatever print she's up to as of about a month ago, I was pissed because she killed a toner cart. I can't imagine how much liquid gold she would have gone through though printing on that all in one. I guess it is nice to have a scanner once in a while though.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!