OSNews patent watch, at your service. Lexmark, apparently under new leadership who can’t recall the defeat the company suffered back in 2005, is undertaking yet another attempt to block third party cartridges for Lexmark printers to enter the market. Instead of invoking the DMCA, they got clever this time and are claiming patent violations.
Earlier this decade, Lexmark filed a similar lawsuit against a manufacturer of a chip that allowed third party cartridge makers to have their products work on Lexmark printers as well as printers from other manufacturers. Lexmark invoked the DMCA in this case, but eventually lost the case in June 2005.
This time around, the company’s taking a different approach, claiming that a whopping 24 companies are “engaged in the manufacture, importation and sale of replacement cartridges for various Lexmark laser printers and multifunction devices”, and thereby violating at least 15 of Lexmark’s patents.
Lexmark is being totally hip by filing this lawsuit in two ways. First, they request that the United States International Trade Commission bans import of the affected products. Second, they filed a patent infringement suit US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, seeking injunctive relief, monetary damages and attorneys’ fees.
“Lexmark is being totally hip by filing this lawsuit”
Hmmmm, did my sense of humor decide to take a nap? What exactly is hip about filing a Patent suit over a simple container for ink. If there are patents, then it has to do with keeping others from producing sensibly priced containers of ink (with a still healthy profit margin). Is this a hip way to use patients? I guess I missed something here. In any case, yet another baseless suit in the name of making obscene profits and abusing your customer. Do Americans every get annoyed enough to say when enough is enough. One can only hope.
Hmmmm, did my sense of humor decide to take a nap?
No, but your sarcasm sensor seems to be offline…
The thing about us americans is tha…is that a new movie/reality show? see ya…
Sure we do, just not enough of us. Those of us who don’t get our daily fix on the latest reality tv shite, we’re plenty ticked off. We seem to be a minority though and in our system, which has turned completely against what it was originally designed to do, no one hears a few voices and the rest of the population simply do not know or care enough about anything but their latest episode of whatever tv show they’re hooked on. The idiot box has done it’s work, it’s made idiots out of most of the populous here.
I think America needs to start the “War on Stupid”. It would probably do us more good than the “War on Terror”.
Go to war against ourselves? Kind of difficult isn’t it?
no no no, that would be the war on fat people
Edited 2010-08-25 14:01 UTC
We don’t get a say of who sues who…I just don’t buy Lexmark stuff. Just like I bought my last Motorola phone as well
I can just only hope that our hand-me-down Z52 isn’t affected; we can’t have the cartridges refilled anymore because our refill service says our printer is too old. (Of course, Lexmark also fought hard to make sure newer cartridges can’t be refilled, either.)
Typical case of a corporation trying to protect their profits, of course, but I’d be more willing to shell out for hardware that has fewer network printing problems. Oh, but that wouldn’t be THEIR business… whatever. And at best, Microsoft would be spiking the punch at the driver “party” again.
Which just shows how much profits printer companies make of Cartridges…
I’m adding Lexmark to the don’t buy list
They’ve already been on my don’t buy list for years given their windows-only approach to their hardware, this just gives me another reason to keep them there.
hmm, I dispute this.
Lexmark laser printers and MFPs have supported Linux and Unix for a long, long, time. Heck, they even have Solaris and AIX drivers in the same download spot as all the other drivers.
It probably doesn’t hurt that Lexmark has been embedding Linux in their MFPs and printers for awhile now too.
I am 50%-50% because once I bought an aftermarket laser toner for a particular printer (on the box it said it was supported) and there was no way I could fit the thing in the printer. Left, right, upside down, forward, backward…..nope….I grabbed the original toner which looks completely different and guess what. It just slides in, click….there you go. The original toner costs $40 more (same price as the printer – $10) so you can either buy a new printer which comes with a toner that will give you 1500 pages 5% coverage or buy a new toner for 2500 pages 5% coverage….Now I want to go with a different make printer but again, toner cartridges are a rip off. How do you choose between different manufacturers? You can’t really, consumer always loses. No matter which one you choose, you end up paying nearly the same price for a toner as for the printer. I really don’t know if I want Lexmark to lose or win. It is not fair for somebody else to steal their business but it is *also* not fair to pay so much money for a cartridge (assuming the price for Lexmark cartridges is the same as other companies I dealt with). But then again, it is not fair to write on the box it is compatible when it is NOT. So really, I support the lawyers on this one and I hope both companies lose somehow…because they deserve it.
Edited 2010-08-25 10:51 UTC
All good points.
However, I’ve bought refills at Costco, and they worked well. Also, I know people who have bought third party ink cartridges, and they worked well.
That said, if I bought an ink cartridge from a third party, and it didn’t work when it said it would work, I would simply not buy from that third party anymore (vote with my wallet).
However, I am most definitely voting with my wallet. I happen to be in the market right now for a printer, and Lexmark was actually high on my list. Well, obviously, that is no more. I’m voting with my wallet, and I’m going to buy from one Lexmark’s competitors.
Lexmark is trying to get a full monopoly on ink cartridges for their printers, and be able to put out wasteful, poor quality printers, and then overcharge for ink cartridge replacements. Under this scenario, the customer gets completely ripped.
And I’ve let them know this. I went to their website, and in the “Contact Us”, and “feedback” link, I told them I’m no longer going to buy their product, for the above reasons.
Let’s hope that Lexmark suffers for their idiotic actions.