Ars Technica – April 08, 2007:
Epson is one step closer to closing the books on a case against third-party ink cartridge manufacturers that make and sell products to work with Epson printers. The company has won a preliminary ruling saying that 24 aftermarket print cartridge manufacturers do indeed infringe on Epson’s patents, and they face orders that would bar them from selling the infringing products in the US.
Epson had filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission in February of 2006 accusing the companies of manufacturing and selling ink cartridges that came too close to Epson’s own cartridge designs. The company had begun to file federal lawsuits against the companies, and many of them decided to settle with Epson rather than fight the case.
The prevailing business model in the printer manufacturing business has long been hinged on ink and toner sales, but manufacturers have seen their profits shrink as third parties move in to sell ink and toner products closer to their own manufacturing costs. In a rather high-profile case, Lexmark battled North Carolina-based Static Control Components (SCC) over the manufacture of printing components meant to lock-out third party providers. In that case, Lexmark had tried to use the DMCA to argue that SCC had infringed on Lexmark’s intellectual property, but that approach failed.
Epson’s approach has focused on patents and patent law, and so far it has been successful. In the federal court case, Epson accused its competitors of patent infringement primarily based on two patents: 7,008,053 and 7,011,397. Both patents cover minor technical innovations in the production of inkjet printer cartridges, and Epson has since piled on additional patents in an attempt to ensnare all of the companies manufacturing ink replacement products for its most recent printers. We suspect that this isn’t the last time we’ll see this tactic used, given its success.
As an authorized distrubutor and servicer, I see the damage that can result from poorly designed copies (cartridges). Customers do get angry when told that their warranty will not cover damage due to the use of the 3rd parts carts. Having said that, I hate the whole concept of cheap disposable printers that use ink as their main source of revenue. It stinks. I am an engineer, I like to repair things, not fill up the landfills with plastic crap.
Funny, I have never had a problem with my third party cartridges. I better stock up. My next printer will NOT be an Epson. That is unfortunate since my current pinter is an Epson R200 and it works great. I refuse to buy products from companies that want to hurt their customers.
I’m a Canon man, though I’ve owned Epsons, as well, but as soon as Kodak expands their line to include something to meet my needs I’ll be on board with them.
http://tinyurl.com/2os3a5
still waiting for the exciting new DRM ink cartridge, dicks.
customers get angry when the Ink runs out after 100 pages…
customers get angry when they find out that in Asia countries, the price is 1/2 that in the USA.
Stop printing, use electronic documents
How on earth will Epson expects to win this?
If Epson outcasts 3rd party providers, people will just buy HP printers… Simple. And if no one buys Epson printers, no one will buy Epson ink…
Duhhh….
The most annoying thing about my Epson is that if I run out of blue ink, for instance, it refuses to print, even when I ask it only to print in black and white, using only black ink. This is outright dishonest and is the reason for my Epson printer having been the first and last ever printer I bought from them… Back to HP on the next one.
Hey Epson! You can forget selling me your line of crap. You are now off our approved purchase list you worked so hard to get on to. Way to go!
Jerks.
Now I’m in a bad mood. Banished forever, I say! You and your out-of-touch friends at Sony! Do you hear me? Anybody home there? Hello? Hello?
I fail to see how Epson is in the wrong here, especially given the razors-and-blades business model for printers and ink. But which company was it that recently introduced a printer that didn’t use this model — a more expensive printer with less-expensive ink?
One assumes HP has pressed similar patent infringement suits, though I don’t know for sure.
10,
Kodak…
The worst Printer on the market.
10. John- I am also HP authorized, I dont remember ever having any problem honoring HP’s warranty when a customer was using non-HP authorized toner or ink. If you call them with print quality issues they wont help you until you replace the ink/toner cartridge, but thats to be expected. But as stated above, Epsons weaknesses are:
1. The heads have a nasty habit of clogging, requiring the user to initiate multiple deep cleanings using an excessive amount of ink in the process. When that fails the heads have to be “flushed” , approx. $40.00 US and NOT covered under warranty.
2. If one of the ink cartridges goes dry, you MUST replace it or the printer will refuse to work till you do, even if you would just like to print in black.
3. The cartridges will be declared “empty” when they are in fact not. Epson just recently settled a class action for this. The result to participants was A FREE INK CARTRIDGE. Whoo hoo.
4. On some models (ex. Photo 2200) a page counter that when the count is reached, requires you to take it to an auth. svc center to do a firmware reset. Cost varies but some shops charge $125.00 for this. I will fax the page to my customers free.
The HP Inkjets have none of these issues.
http://texyt.com/epson_kodak_cheap_ink_cartridge_prices
FOUND IT…
Ink: 70 percent off
The first signs of real distress from the traditional printer industry are coming from Asia. Consumers in developing nations are especially price conscious, and clone cartridge makers there are strengthened by weak intellectual property rights enforcement.
Epson is now selling printer ink in Asia at just one third of US or European prices.
The company is strongly promoting its C58 and ME 2 series of printers as being the cheapest to use in Asia’s developing markets, such as China and India. Lyra estimates their cost per page at around half that of printers from HP and Canon. A full page black and white print costs as little as 1.5 cents (US$0.015), according to data from Epson China. A color page costs less than 4 cents.
“If Epson succeeds [in Asia], HP and the others will have to copy Epson’s strategy and offer very cheap consumables or abandon the market,” predicts LaCompte.
——————————————
Like printing money
“A company sells a $100 ink jet printer and loses $30 or $40 on the sale,” explains Charles LeCompte, president of printer research firm, Lyra, “but every few months the consumer buys a new cartridge and the manufacturer makes ten dollars or so.”
“After 199 days, profit from the cartridges has made up for the loss on the printer, and after three years, the manufacturer has run up a tidy $160 profit.”
It’s a neat little routine that has helped the imaging business increase sales steadily to $160bn a year worldwide. More than two thirds of that comes from supplies like ink and toner.
Sometimes, the fact that things cost differently around the world is not anti-american or anti-consumer. If a drug company tries to sell a life saving drug to the third world at the same price as the US, they get accused of cruelty, with cries that the 3rd world country should be able to make their own generics. But if they try to adjust the price to local conditions, they get accused of overcharging others. It’s a complex world, with no simple answers.
Bottom line: on this forum, capitalism never wins. Corporations are wrong if they do, wrong if they don’t. If Epson wants to make the decision to not allow 3rd party cartridges, fine let them try. WE DON”T HAVE TO BUY EPSONS, and if a printer manufacturer want’s to capitalize on the fact that their consumables are cheaper, let them. What is the big deal?
Sounds like their shooting themselves in the foot.
10. “I fail to see how Epson is in the wrong here, especially given the razors-and-blades business model for printers and ink.”
Your failure in your ignorance relating to patents. The point of patents is to protect genuine inventions to foster innovation. The point of patents is NOT to protect particular business models.
If Epson wants to sell its printers cheap and its ink expensively, that’s fine. But it shouldn’t be the government’s job to protect that decision.
And speaking of razors, I buy an off-brand of razors to go with my Gillette Sensor handles. And I’ve yet to see a lawsuit try and stop that. If the razor industry can withstand a little free-market competition, I think the printer industry can too.
“on this forum, capitalism never wins”
I think it is more accurate to say that corporations never win. Trying to pass a law is not capitalism. It is elimination of competition.
Personally, I bought a B&W laser printer 3 years ago for just a little over $100 and have only recently had to change the toner cartridge for the first time. If all you do it print black text ink jets are a sucker purchase.
errrr, not pass a law. I meant get lawsuits won making them illegal!
Yes, #8 Miguel
“1. The heads have a nasty habit of clogging, requiring the user to initiate multiple deep cleanings using an excessive amount of ink in the process. When that fails the heads have to be “flushed” , approx. $40.00 US and NOT covered under warranty.”
This happened to me about 2 years ago with an expensive Epson. I ended up junking it. No more Epsons for me! I used only for photprinting; now I print photos by uploading to a quality internet photo processor after I edit. No expensive printer, no expensive ink, and no expensive paper – and no hassle. I only use a laser for everyday B/W printing.
The last time I owned a printer was… oh, jebus – over 8 yrs ago.. it was an epson, and i blew it up w/ fireworks after reapiring it twice myself – If i do need to print something, I do it at work.
When I can inject Epson ink and cure cancer, let me know, otherwise…
Ink is not a life-saving drug and your illustration fails! The fact that I can buy ink cheaper than Epson (and HP, etc.) will sell it to me right here and now indicates that they are all up to no good!
Epson has a lot of faults, but until HP stops using a U-turn print path, Epson seems like the best choice for odd-size and odd-stock printing.
Epson makes the best high end printers period. Almost all pros use them from high end prints. I have used non- Epson inks and they seemed to work ok. But after visiting a relative and seeing the photos I sent them and how they faded I’ll never use a third party ink.
No more Epson printers for me. It’s a very old lock-in scam and I won’t buy any product by a company that plays that way against its own customers. If they want to compete on the quality of their ink, fine. If they just want to lock out competition, as is clearly the case here, they just disqualified themselves from my consideration. I don’t imagine I’m alone in that.
Your failure in your ignorance relating to patents. The point of patents is to protect genuine inventions to foster innovation. The point of patents is NOT to protect particular business models.
If Epson wants to sell its printers cheap and its ink expensively, that’s fine. But it shouldn’t be the government’s job to protect that decision.
Individual patents do not have to pass any “greater good” test, and it’s far from clear that this business model isn’t in the interest of the greater good. Lower up-front costs for printers may very well be better for consumers (I know they are for me, since I don’t print forests of documents).
Patents do have to be “useful,” “non-obvious” and “novel,” which are probably satisfied by the Epson patents or they would have lost this case. And it is the government’s job to enforce valid patents. (There are far more serious patent shenanigans going on, so SN might not waste space on this non-atrocity.)
If you don’t think Schick, et al, have sued makers of knock-off blades, guess again.
they have such a lack of phantasy… patents to protect something that is absolutely mainstream: printer inks…
If their inks are better than other peoples, they will sell them.
If they’re not they need “protection”.
The German computer magazine c’t has had the ultimate idea for the printer manufacturers many years ago:
Flash memory is cheap. Embed an 8 or 16MB flash chip in every ink cardridge and preload it with a copyrighted piece of music. The Printer checks for it to be signed with the DRM key of the printer manufacturer and only if that signature is correct, it will assume that the tune hasn’t been pirated and hence will go ahead printing.
If anyone counterfeits those print cardridges, he will necessarily have to “steal” the music in them, hence the act of copying the cardridge will be miniscule behind the act of stealing music for profits. This way, they’d be protected by the dmca. Cool, right?
pj
Seems to me that forcing people to buy cartidges which basically cost the same as a new printer is counter productive as a business. Doing this makes me have no loyalty to my printer brand because I can dump it any month I have to buy a new set of cartidges. There is little cost differnce between a new printer or replacemente cartidges.
Then there is ticking off the users.
I hate printers that tell me they wont work because the cyan is out, and I am printing in black and white. Worse when I have to replace all the colors for one going out. I have used Epson printers for 4 printers now, and I wont buy Epson again Right now I have an Epson C67, and cartridges here in Mexico cost $22 dollars in Walmart, and I pay $5 for a new cartridge (not refilled or previously used).
Why doesnt somebody make a $200-$300 printer where you put in the ink like a photocopy machine. Buy it in a bottle, and fill up a bin. I would pay 3-4x more for such a printer.
Other issue, why are we 10 years down the road and the quality of the printers output is still 1990s? It would seem they could make true photographic quality by now. I see no difference in output quality than with a printer 10 years old. I see no brains in the printer to stop a print job when a page jams, and restart with that jammed page.
Another thing, what ever happened to saving paper? Why doesnt the print driver print 2 pages per page. The garbage they put out will not make a booklet like the Clickbook (bluesquirrel.com) software does (the order is what is important). In other words printer companies are slapping out 10 year old printers, no new innovations in software nor hardware, and making a bundle, and griping about it.
I was disgusted when I saw a free”return to Epson” envelope in the US post office to recycle used printer cartridges. Good grief! Now we have the US Government giving room for Epson to recycle their junk cartridges and to resell it as new cartridges. Have you ever seen an official Epson Cartidge labeled “recycled cartridge”? No! Why? Because you would want it cheaper, and that is a no-no. They want us to donate to them the old cartridges so that they can cut their costs even more. Epson should be making ink by the barrels, and it should cost them less than a buck per cartridge because of their volume, and now they want us to “help them” with a free cartridge for them?!?!
This stinks. I hope some super small company makes a $200 printer that you put ink into it by pouring from a bottle into an ink reserve. There exists a kit to attach 4 ink bottles to a special head that replaces the head in a specific model of Epson printer. The thing costs $200 dollars, but from there you dont use cartridges, just the bottles. A bottle costs around $20 for 20 oz of ink.
Epson will break their own business by doing stupidity like this, and it will start a chain reaction among all the printer companies.
I’ve always had Epson printers here in the U.K. We buy non-Epson branded cartridges as a set (3 colour and black) for £5, what’s that, 10 Bucks there? I wouldn’t ever go to a different brand while I can get this cheap ink, I think it’s right Epson protect their revenue as without it their would be no Epson nor cheap ink.
I kinda’ agree with the consumer but knowing what Microsoft get away with and knowing most of you moaning about Epson have Windows?! Come-on guys, you’d only really say this on a blog, but really, you’d buy cheap ink if you were the comsumer, and if it was your profit, if you were Epson, you’d sue every tom, dick and harry to protect your revenue.
A note to HP brand-less cartridges. HP has succeeded in removing the cheap non-brands from most markets. While working at Staples I learned that HP pretty much threatened to cut of supplies if the company didn’t stop vending non-brand ink.