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One man's effort to sue HP Inc for preventing his printers from working and forcing him to use its own branded, and more expensive, ink cartridges can move forward in California.
Florida man John Parziale was furious when he discovered in April last year that HP had automatically updated his two printers so they would no longer accept ink cartridges from third-party vendors – cartridges he had already bought and installed.
That month, HP emitted a remote firmware update, without alerting users, that changed the communication protocol between a printer's chipset and the electronics in its inkjet cartridges so that only HP-branded kit was accepted. The result was that Parziale's printer would no longer work with his third-party ink. He saw a series of error messages that said he needed to replace empty cartridges and that there was a "cartridge problem."
Parziale sued the IT titan in its home state of California, arguing he would never have bought the HP printers if he knew they would only work with HP-branded ink cartridges. At the time, the cartridges he bought to go with the machine did in fact work and were printing merrily right up to the point the DRM-style update was sent.
[...] But feeling ripped off and beating a tech giant in court are two different things, as Parziale found out this month [PDF] when federal district judge Edward Davila threw out most of his claims against HP. Four of five allegations he had made were under America's Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), accusing HP of abusing its "authorized access" to his devices. These were rejected because, the judge noted, he had granted HP remote access to his printer.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2020, @12:09PM (10 children)
A good lawyer would need to sort this out, but it looks like the judge gave them an opening to fix this problem.
"As HP points out, however, the Support Page, which is
incorporated into the FAC, contains a number of reasons for the firmware updates that are
allegedly beneficial to consumers and to competition. See Support Page, Dkt. No. 26-1 (the
“process for authenticating cartridges” is to “protect the quality of [the] customer experience,
maintain the integrity of [HP’s] printing systems, and protect [HP’s] intellectual property.”).
Plaintiff raises no allegations to refute these alleged benefits, or to show that they are outweighed
by the injury he suffered. "
It seems misleading that a/the major reason is missing from the reasons for the authentication of cartridges.
That is to monetize their IP.
Additionally, it seems arguable that preventing third party cartridges actually does the reverse of what they say are trying to accomplish.
For this knowledgable customer, it certainly didn't enhance the customer experience. (He went from working and happy to dead in the water.)
There is theoretical risk to HP's reputation from a bad cartridge printing poorly, but s/w that warns the consumer would help HP's reputation there more than this mod did.
Not sure how it protects and Intellectual property other than monetizing.
If this area of the claim could be ammended as the judge asks and discovery done, it seems worth publishing HP's logic behind this particular mod.
Maybe a go fund me with the constraint of publishing to accomplish this?
I'm not sure if it would be good for consumer protection to go this way, but did HP also have a duty to help, instead of hurt it's customer?
It's one thing to sell a product that doesn't work because of a design flaw and have words in the warranty to slip out of responsibility.
It's another thing to go out of your way to make the product work in a manner with is the reverse of the primary stated purpose of the product.
HP sold a printer, not a revenue collection device.
If they had advertized it as a revenue device and it worked that way from the beginning, them it might be a different story.
Again,published discovery would be interesting here.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Thursday April 30 2020, @12:43PM (3 children)
Surely, the fact that he is taking them to court is in itself an allegation that the alleged benefits are outweighed
by the injury he suffered.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2020, @03:15PM
My read is that the judge agrees with you, and suggests how to put the allegation in the correct form to be heard.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday April 30 2020, @03:20PM
I hear you and I wish that was the case, but there is a thing called "frivolous lawsuit". Not everyone is fully rational. Or, they may be caught up in whatever the issue is, and not fully understand the other side's case. (which is why we have courts and judges). You would hope a lawyer would advise them, but lawyers want to make $, so they'll pretty much go along with anything that someone pays them for.
If lawyers were only allowed to charge minimum wage plus collect a percentage of winnings (contingency), we'd have a much cleaner legal system.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2020, @09:56PM
In court and Federal Courts in particular, you have to be explicit. In cases like this, you can only win in court if you have damages. Therefore, you have to tell the court you have damages. Same with the CFAA, he says they weren't authorized to access the machines. So he loses, despite it being obvious that what he probably meant was that HP exceeded the authorization he gave them with such a change to his system.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2020, @01:14PM (5 children)
Why should God have to pay for it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2020, @01:37PM (4 children)
What does God need with a printer?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2020, @03:10PM
What does God need with a printer?
Probably nothing, but maybe a less helpful spell checker?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday April 30 2020, @03:19PM
A church office might use a printer. Name it: Prints Of Peace
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday May 01 2020, @02:10AM
After editing away the mistakes he made with this world, he would like to make a few more, without all the work? What does anyone want with a printer? And, LASER printer! He can mount them on sharks!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2020, @10:58AM
He was the original 3D printer pioneer.