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Get ready -- ink cartridges are going to get a little more expensive again

Seiko Epson recently won a preliminary ruling that will block any ink cartridges from entering the country that violate the company's patents.  Epson saw a number of third-party companies which it believed to be infringing upon multiple patents.  Cartridge technologies account for about half of the company's annual sales.  

Epson Portland, Seiko Epson and Epson America filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission in February 2006 that claimed as many as 24 companies of illegally importing and infringing on sales of ink cartridges.  "The complaint alleges violations of section 337 in the importation into the United States, the sale for importation, and the sale within the United States after importation of certain ink cartridges and components thereof," according to a notice of

Epson filed action in U.S. District Court of Portland, Oregon, against all 24 companies.  Epson also filed a civil lawsuit seeking damages caused by the intellectual property infringement.

On March 30, 2007, ITC Judge Paul Luckern agreed that the ink cartridges being offered by ink vendors does infringe upon Epson patents.  The judge previously held a hearing in January, where several companies attempted to defend their actions -- Luckern found that 750 models of cartridges infringed on at least one of 11 Epson patents.  

"Once ITC's judgment becomes officially effective, the suspension of sales in and importation to the United States will be applied to all cartridge vendors that infringe our patents," said an Epson spokesperson.

The ITC will make a final determination in the case on July 30.

Seiko Epson has reached settlement agreements with seven suppliers, as agreements are expected to be reached with several other companies soon.  The company has already filed similar complaints in China and England, already settling some of the cases.

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Yp
By FakeDetector on 4/8/2007 3:43:39 PM , Rating: 2
I never used a original cartridge and never will !!!

Epson, HP and all other printer companies, are the worst thiefs of all, charging oustrageous prices for a drop of ink.

i have ton od printers but one is my love, a Epson Stylus color 600 with 6 years using non original cartridiges and working flawless.. so if a retard told you that non original cartridiges can damage your printer, tell him to #$@uk off




RE: Yp
By AlexWade on 4/8/2007 4:05:59 PM , Rating: 3
Do what I did. Buy a Brother laser printer. HP and Lexmark lasers cost per page is on par with their ink. Brother, on the other hand, charges $80 for 10,000 sheets. Keep inkjets around for the rare times you'll need color.


RE: Yp
By Hare on 4/8/2007 4:13:37 PM , Rating: 5
quote:
Epson, HP and all other printer companies, are the worst thiefs of all, charging oustrageous prices for a drop of ink.
"Thief" is a pretty harsh word. Their business model simply consists of selling the actual printers without a real profit margin and getting the profits from inks. If original ink would be cheaper printers would surely cost more.

I would actually prefer to pay less for the inks and don't like the current "consumer trapping" scheme but on the other hand I understand why Epson etc are trying to ban third party ink...

Perhaps the printer manufacturers need to revise their business model. If they increased the actual printer prices and charged less for ink, third party ink would not be such a problem (since it wouldn't cost significantly less than oem ink).


RE: Yp
By SunAngel on 4/8/07, Rating: -1
RE: Yp
By Locutus465 on 4/8/2007 5:05:07 PM , Rating: 3
Personally I don't see why printer manufactures don't just go ahead and charge a reasonable price for their printers (i.e. what they're worth making some profit rather than giving them away), then lower the price on ink carterages to a level people can actually afford. That would be the best solution all around from where I sit.


RE: Yp
By TSS on 4/8/2007 5:49:22 PM , Rating: 2
no, that would be the best solution from the consumer's point of view. since you need to renew inkt alot more then you need to renew printers, there is possibly more profit in charging more for the inkt then for the printers itself.

and besides, depending on how their idea is of how many times you will replace the inkt, thats how much more the printers would cost. if they'd stay with the same profit margins but shift to more expensive printers intead of inkt, i wouldn't be suprised if the cheaper printers (sub $100-$150 dollars) would double in price.

and then of course people will whine about the too expensive printers, and somebody will eventually come up with the genius idea of making the printers cheaper, and the inkt more expensive :P.


RE: Yp
By gonchuki on 4/8/2007 10:56:22 PM , Rating: 3
on that matter, i currently find cheaper getting a new printer when my cartdriges go empty.
Down where i live (uruguay) an HP or Lexmark cartdrige goes for around $32, and you can almost always find bargain printers from those brands at $38-40. So for a measly $6-8 more i get a faster and better printer than if i got original cartdriges alone.
On that business model, they are losing money with me.


RE: Yp
By Hare on 4/9/2007 3:07:32 AM , Rating: 2
It depends. When you buy a new printer it has a small ink catridge. They sell printers with very little ink so that you need to buy ink soon. When you buy ink separately the cartridges can be double the size of your original that came with the printer.

I also have an older HP Deskjet and it's sitting in the closet. I won't buy more ink, next stop is another printer. Just because of the cost. Upgrading is so cheap that I won't waste money on that old junk. Color lasers are pretty cheap nowadays.


RE: Yp
By Seymourbbuts on 4/9/2007 9:05:28 PM , Rating: 2
True, but with some printers that my parents have bought, the cartridges that came with it have lasted longer than the replacements that we have bought.

No, we didn't just stop using our printer as often when we bought new ones, we consistently use it on a regular basis.


RE: Yp
By Oregonian2 on 4/9/2007 5:27:13 PM , Rating: 2
The answer is very easy. VERY few people would buy their printer. Plain as that. People are greedy and will buy cheap. Not every single individual, but talking about "the masses". A printer I bought many many years ago was the ALPS MD1300. It was a 600 dpi dyesub that absolutely blew away ALL inkjets sold in its time (some years ago). Note that being a dyesub, EACH dot could be any of a rainbow of colors, not just one of six or eight (four mostly at the time). Blew away any inkjet in terms of photographic quality. It also made completely waterproof prints. That were dry "instantly" because there never was any liquid involved to begin with. For that reason as well, heads never got clogged. No liquid ink. Likewise the print "ink" could sit around for a long time, it never dried out either. In addition to all of this the run-time costs of materials was the same as inkjets at the time (theirs was a lot cheaper to run than competitive and current dyesubs). Did I mention how it also could print silver, gold, etc "ink'? Or even print white on black paper? But ALPS wanted to profit on the printer itself so it sold for about $550 while inkjets selling at-cost (or lower) were going for something like $250 at the time. They gave up after a few years in obscurity. Nobody would buy the drastically better printer -- it costed more than inkjets and profitted the maker, unlike the competition. Sales-droids at the store (Fry's, etc) could sell the cheaper ones much easier. In the consumer market, the cheapest product that is thought to do an adequate job will be that sold (en masse). So your plan would only work if ALL printer companies jacked up their prices all together. Never happen. Actually in the olden days, selling below cost caused companies to be sued by the government. But no longer. Government just buys the cheap printers themselves.


RE: Yp
By theapparition on 4/10/2007 6:21:55 PM , Rating: 2
I agree,
Funny how the obvious is just so hard to see.........


RE: Yp
By TheGreek on 4/11/2007 10:29:30 AM , Rating: 2
I remember that printer, and yes the foil printing was very impressive.

Wish I had one.


RE: Yp
By Cunthor666 on 4/8/2007 6:11:02 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
so if a retard told you that non original cartridiges can damage your printer, tell him to #$@uk off


It might not damage your low end stuff, but for someone like me who prints exhibition prints for sale it needs to be original. For start, pro printers (R1800 upwards) tend to use archival inks and therefore NEED to be archival. Epson, HP and maybe Canon now (still far behind the rest) all have a battery of test performed by indenpendent researchers where they test print longitivity. So next time you use your non-OEM inks, don't be supprised when your family photo fades completly in 2 years...

Second, I would NEVER buy non-branded inks from 3rd party (with the exception from Lyson, Inkjet Art and handfull of others that specialise in archival/b&w printing). Do you know how small your print head on that $1000 printer is? Smaller then your urethra. Now imagine pissing sand and you are not far off the mark. Don't be supprised that these garage refillers inlude bits of shit in your next inkset.

So while your printer might be ok, for someone making money from prints should never use 3rd party inks.

Here is a link if anyone wants to know more about archival prints: http://www.wilhelm-research.com/


RE: Yp
By Darkskypoet on 4/8/2007 7:43:13 PM , Rating: 3
Have to agree with you there. Same as wide format inkjets, etc. However we are talking $30,000 and up for a printer. If you're printing signage and the like, many times the firm in question gets to pick up the tab if the prints fade before expected. Not to mention in accurate color reproduction. Thats a mighty strong reason to buy the proper inks. (reprints in wide format demolish profit margins)

That being said, it's a completely different business model. Many of these printers have high volume ink systems as options, and essential the price on ink is, much cheaper $/litre than their smaller cheaper counter parts.

When you're printing hundreds of square meters a day at well over 75% saturation you go through ink like crazy. If the cost was even remotely similar high end wide format digital printing would never have the gained the adoption in the industry that it has now.

Best solution from a consumer standpoint I would have to say (and has already been mentioned) is a cheap laser and an inkjet for the odd colour task. However, the issue there is that if you don't print enough with your laser you kill print heads with dried up ink.

As an aside to the urethra comment, try not peeing for a couple months, and see how well it works. :)

I think eventually, we'll simply find colour lasers coming down even more then they have. Much cheaper per page, and you don't have to worry about dried up print heads. Not to mention the tiny duty cycles cheap ink jets provide.


RE: Yp
By Oregonian2 on 4/9/2007 5:11:46 PM , Rating: 1
Darn right! Those crooks should sell their inks for a loss like they do their printers. So what if they have to lay off their employees who then have to put their children in orphanages, heck that happens all the time everywhere! When they go bankrupt after having lost money too long we'll just change over to another printer company, there's lots of them! We'll only support those who are willing to lose money overall in the long term in their printer division. They can make it up in some other portion of their corporation where I don't buy any on their products. That's the ticket!


RE: Yp
By dgingeri on 4/9/2007 6:02:22 PM , Rating: 2
I disagree on most of this. Epson and HP sell their printers at a lower cost to make money on the printers themselves. At least they make decent cartridges.

The generic cartridges I have used tend to dry out or otherwise become useless in very short order. the print quality of these cartridges tends to be very, very poor as well. They are only good with Lexmark printers, where the manufacturer's cartridges aren't any better than the generics. You certainly get what you pay for.

It's just like buying no-name cell phone batteries. don't complain too much when they explode when recharging or have a half hour life span after only a few weeks.

I have owned 1 HP printer, and have been through about a dozen cartridges with it. they print well and stay useful during the long periods I don't use my printer. I have only once had the cartridge dry out, and a couple cleaning cycles later it was working just fine again.

I'll continue to pay the $45 for my color cartridges and $30 for my black ones. I know the HP cartridges work well.My printer may have only cost me $90, but it has kept working well for over 4 years now.


RE: Yp
By Oregonian2 on 4/10/2007 5:36:35 PM , Rating: 2
Yes, I buy Canon-brand ink cartridges for my Canon i9900 printer and use Canon brand Photo Pro paper in it. I was attempting sarcasm, without success it seems. The last line was a Saturday night live comedian's tagline. Oh well...

Actually we do have a cheapie printer that we use for printing that will get tossed before long or for things who's quality doesn't matter whatsoever (most of which is B&W text). We do use third party cheap cartridges for that one. They're crap, but adequate for what we use that printer for (have noted too that some brands are even crappier than others -- we moved up from a $2/cart brand to a $3/cart brand, and it was much less crappy).


RE: Yp
By theapparition on 4/10/2007 6:23:57 PM , Rating: 2
That wooshing sound over your head.......
That was sarcasm.


In Japan
By Triring on 4/8/2007 8:10:15 PM , Rating: 2
In Japan various third party companies collects original used ink cartridge and refill them with their own ink and sell them.
This does not infringe any patents and good for the enviorment.

You don't need to fight heads on, just evade the storm.




RE: In Japan
By darkavatar on 4/9/2007 7:49:59 AM , Rating: 3
From what I've heard from my refill dealer, they claim to use the same "Genuine Ink" as Epson & like. Not that I care though... as long as it works gives me color for cheap I'm happy to use it.