Epson Succeeds In Stopping Competitors From Making Compatible Ink Cartridges
from the remind-me-not-to-buy-another-Epson-printer dept
I currently have an Epson printer that's on its last legs. While the printer has served me fine for many years, Epson has just made it abundantly clear why I should never buy another printer from them. Last February, the company went after 24 vendors of Epson-compatible ink cartridges, claiming "patent" violations for putting ink into a cartridge that works on their printers. That's clearly not in the spirit of the patent system at all, but rather a blatant attempt to keep competitors out of the market by misusing patent laws. It's obviously lucrative to Epson to do so, since the artificial scarcity the printer companies have created has inflated the price of ink to ridiculous levels (filling a swimming pool with ink would cost nearly $6 billion -- with a b), making it perhaps the most expensive liquid around. So, it's unfortunate that Epson has apparently succeeded in intimidating many of the compatible ink cartridge makers into leaving the market. Obviously, Epson thinks it's in its own best interests to limit the market so they can charge such high prices (this is the same company that has also been accused of forcing you to replace cartridges even when they still have plenty of ink -- a charge the company denies). However, it also signals to consumers that Epson printers are going to be plenty expensive to maintain and that they may be better off looking elsewhere. Certainly, many of the other printer makers are just as bad, but that should be seen as an opportunity for someone to come along and charge a much more reasonable amount for ink, and then advertise the hell out of how much money they'll save everyone.
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Common sense fails. Again
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I have a Samsung color laser, and when I went to refill the toner cartridges, I could pay $50 for toner, or $180 for their cartridge, with 1/4 the toner. But they had changed their cartridge design, making it impossible to fill. Did I roll over and pay ridiculous prices? No! I got a machinist to drill holes and put plugs in for me.
Best damn decision ever. It's cheap to print to my color lasrer now.
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By the time I've gone through those 2 Epson printers, a better (i mean, "new version") of Epson technology has been released. I then purchase 2 more of those and repeat the process all over again.
This method is far less costly than purchasing ink every 5 months and I can always have the latest $49.99 printer.
Doing this is less expensive for me, but probably costs Epson a bundle of $$$, but they CHOOSE to undersell their printers and OVERSELL their inks - their loss.
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>When the ink runs out in one, I just throw that entire printer out and open the other new printer.
Fool! You can ebay the printers after you done and cut your cost even more! ;)
Feel proud for screwing Epson out of money though, maybe they will learn?
(No that's not very likely.. at least you get affordable printing)
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We can bitch to each other all we want; but if we don't bitch directly to the companies, our legislators and the main stream media, in writing, then these outrages will continue. And we definitely have to buy other brands.
The manufacturers are not stupid. They plan for the things people do to get around their policies, and have their next steps well planned out.
Think about this scenario:
Since nobody can do compatible cartridges, and they try to scare us about other brand inks, they start inching up the price of the printers. All the manufacturers at about the same time.
It was Mr. King Gillette, the razor guy, who invented the idea of "giving away the razors to sell the blades".
Have you seen the price of the razors AND the blades these days?
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Refill!?
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Re: Refill!?
Can't we just refill the damn ink cartridge?
Well, that's the thing that brings in "patent infringement". Epson's current printers have a microchip built into the ink cartridges that programatically "kill" the cartridge after a preset amount of time has passed, whether the cartridge has ink or not, whether it's jets are still in good shape or not. Refilling has no effect. You either have to reset the chip and face DMCA circumvention charges, replicate the chip and face patent infringement charges, or pay their inflated charges.
So, for no good reason, no you can't just refill the cartridge. Therein, therefore, the bitch session.
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Starter Inks
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Re: Starter Inks
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Ink Jet Printers
When you buy a new printer, find out who the real manufacturer of the base engine is. Samsung is now producing the real workhorses that the tagging manufacturers are charging a premium for.
Look for comparable OEM carts that are cross indexed for other machines. The big names charge a premium for those carts while the cross indexed models are much cheaper. Same cart.
Warranty? I have had only one machine ever go bad in a warranty period. Warranties be damned.
LB
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Anyways, so far I've found Canon to not be arsehats when it comes to catridges. Tho I may be wrong.
Thank you, Lexmark, for showing people how to guard your ink trademarks.
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Resetting Epson Cartridges
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Re: There are ways around those chips
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Re: Re: There are ways around those chips
They work great once you remove the air hole plug. I was almost ready to junk the printer but now I can refill a will. They have an auto reset chip so you don't have to worry about that.
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Ink cost
And why do they change models and cartridge designs so frequently? To make sure that they always have a patent covering a key design feature to help keep others off their turf.
And don't think the situation with laser printers in any different.
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CANON
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Used to...
My inks cost more? Yes they do. They also last 1000 times longer. (OK so it's a completely made up number...So what)
Not to mention it plugs right into my home network.
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somehow... i cant see it. my mother has an hp printer from 10 years ago. funny thing..... the ink cart in that looks exactly the same as the hp printer siitin on the shelf at wally world. the technology is archaic at best. maybe they need to make more money on the ink to offset the cost of that fancy lokin cardboard box they come in.
also. walgreens... will print any 4 x 6 photo for 19 cents. your community college will print black and white for free. libraries will print black and white for 10 cents.... color for 50.
whatever happened to dot matrix anyways.
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No way to win
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Printers
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Printer costs
I agree with Howbad regarding cannon printers. None of the printers are perfect, I use an old cannon multifunction that uses a tricolor and a black cartridge and prints quite respectably. The print head is also easily removable with a lever and a quick soak in warm vinegar water will bust any clogged nozels (usually from lack of use).
We print alot of color on photo paper (Ilford Gloss 8.5x11 form Sams $25.00 / 100 sheets). The paper has a great finish and the prints look very good. OK, they are not waterproof, but you can print about 30 full color 8.5 images with a pair af cartridges.
Costs: Color cartridges $1.30 Black cartridges $.95 from several web stores (watch the shipping)
Thats under 10 cents a page for full color 8.5X11 images at high quality setting and .25 cents for good photo paper. You cant beat that at any printing kiosk that I know of and you can do it at home where you are comfortable messing around with the images to get them the way you want them.
Normal text and mixed media printing will cost under 3 cents per page for ink.
I buy about $30 bucks worth at a time and they last a couple of years, and I push the print button any time I feel like it with out thinking twice. Ok, you do get a little giddy knowing that it is cheap.
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They didn't stop us
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Re: They didn't stop us
sorry for the typo
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Vintage Champagne is cheaper!!!
I see that HP sued a company that just refill ink cartridges and buying a cartridge that isn't from the brand of the printer is more or less counterfeiting. So I guess for a little while you could use those services that might make this cheaper but some day they might be forced out of business fined and imprisoned because they either don't share the profits with the printer manufacturer or not enough and you have to act like my boy's in Lebanon and learn how to 'pinch' it some how. Like the do it your self kits that don't work believe me freaking MacGyver couldn‘t get that shit to work right.
I bought one black ink cartridge like in August and what I do when I want to print something most of the time I use quick print which doesn't use that much ink and I click into the ONLY BLACK ink part. I haven't yet purchased the color ink that went out yet. Mainly because this is my second printer and I purchase this new one because it came with the ink and this was all like $50 dollars. The black ink it self was $30 plus dollars. I have always hated this ink ‘blackmail‘. Especially when it comes to photos when I do a few photos and I use the "Best" setting it really DRAINS my ink levels down they are sandbagging thugs. Obviously they have the cartridge size and the amount of ink in the sponge down to a science. It should have a certain size regulated by the government? Or we could regulate the ink but I doubt very much it has any thing to do with the ink itself I believe the price has to do with this fake idea that the chip that the printer reads on the cartridge it self is costly.
So basically I got my printer down to one or two cartridges a year. That is a serious savings because if you add that up you could buy some new hardware or software. You know those muthafockers are making these in china some where and those people are making what 2 cents a DAY and they expect you to pay $60 bucks for their ink?
I guess the underground "BLACK" market for ink cartridges is just going to have to be pretty big and much better before the companies realize that their monoploy just doesn't work out for every one. Of course Techdirt author these people play games with "their products" because they also have a stock market symbol which means they have to keep their major investors happy along with every thing else. I mean if Google stock is worth $500.00's each and HP or Epson is probably way below that level? I'm sure people think of way's to make the MOST PROFIT even if it is really is a shake-down to the consumer if that person purchases that brand. Obviously if a printer manufacturer would come out with a printer that works with ANY CARTRIDGE with out having a patent problem or just some cheaper ink they would be getting some business from me.
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After reading this article, it now rests in pieces in the dumpster outside.
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Anonymous Coward
Bulk is always a way to go through a third party, but you end up saving a very big chunk of change, however the third parties generally require a large order and sometimes only carry laser or larger printer sizes.
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economy printing
downside.. it sounded like a chainsaw, oh and graphics.. try 20 mins for a a4 sheet of colour photo at max res. but for plain text it flew.
then a hp940c (still got it somewhere) for more professional stuff, i like the 940c since i can refill it myself.
biggest regret? flogging the 9-pin on, for what i normally print it was worth the noise, printing costs worked out about 0.1p per sheet, assuming you chnaged the ribbon, which i didn't often do.
its the first thing i'd check for now, "can I refill the carts" before getting a new inkjet, the HP cost me 150ukp new, but i've more than saved the extra over a cheap printer on ink costs.
the only problem is getting it to work again (its been on a shelf for a year) but I't will go, though i may have to by new carts for it first...
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Playing their game
I bought a great HP printer for 29 bucks. The Ink cost almost $40 to replace!? Also the printer came "without" a usb cord. Yes I am not kidding, and if you wanted to buy a HP brand 6 foot USB cable it was 23 dollars! I used my old one...
It struck me though, how friggin wasteful it is to keep buying new printers instead of ink. Not only that, but I imagine by buying new printers every year or so I am playing right into the hands of the printer manufactures. I am so used, I feel dirty.
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Forget ink, paper, printers... use PDFs
Sure, occasionally I still need to print things out for one reason or another, but CutePDF is great for times when I just the purpose of my "printing" is just to get a static copy of a web page I know will change, or to do a rough-draft print to see how it looks on paper (because things will look different printed than they do in PrintPreview, but CutePDF is always pretty close to how it would have looked on paper), or to "print" a file and let someone review a "hard copy" without being able to futz with the original file.... using CutePDF lets me do those type of things without NEEDING to print and waste paper or ink or even having a printer connected. and since I've started using it and made it my "default" printer, I've found that I can get by without real printouts more than I thought.
The final thing I like about CutePDF is that if I always print to CutePDF first, then print out the PDF... I always have an electronic "proof quality" version of what I actually printed and/or gave to someone. So it's self-documentation for me as well.
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"So if you want to be able to buy 3rd party ink then so be it but dont bitch when a new basic inkjet printer costs $300."
Does anyone have a clue what the real costs for printer manufacture are? Would a basic printer really be five times as expensive as it is now, if ink was sold at close to cost price? Does strike me as odd that no-one's broken this "give the printer away for free, extort money for ink" model.
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3rd party ink
I work for a printer company. We deal with this issue all the time.
You're only thinking of the price of the ink. Third party ink causes a lot more problems than unhappy companies. Most companies have a formula for their ink that is optimal for the print head. Third party companies couldn't give a crap about that, they just want your money. When the third party ink is too thick to run through the print head nozzles, it gets clogged and cannot function. When it's too thin, your prints look like crap and the print head eventually gets burned. The print head usually costs more than the printer itself, so when it goes bad, the printer, the print head, and your third party inks are all worthless. You might not care if you own a $40 printer and will just toss it and buy another, but buy a decent higher end printer and do this and after a while you will get tired of paying for another $150 printer every four months.
The funny thing about all this is that the people who usually end up trashing their print head using third party inks are the same people who complain that a company's product is crap. If you used it as recommended you'd have a better product that lasted a lot longer.
And Reed, I can't think of any printer companies that include a USB cable with their products. Why? Because most people have quite a few already. If not, it's cheaper to buy a standard cable than have the company include one, both for price reasons, and troubleshooting if something is wrong.
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Re: 3rd party ink
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Re: Re: 3rd party ink
Certainly: but if a printer manufacturer knows that using third party inks will damage the the printer, and warn about this, should they be expected to honour warranties to people who use other inks? It might not be fair for Epson to use the courts to stop third parties selling inks to work on their printers, but it would be equally unfair to expect them to replace a printer that's broken because you've tried to refill the cartridge with Dulux.
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Re: Re: Re: 3rd party ink
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What happens to old printers
What if everyone just simply tossed out their $49.99 printer instead of buying $70 worth of new ink? How soon would it take to fill our land fills? I mean, it's not like the printer is bad or old- it simply ran out of ink and has many years of useful life left in it.
This just shows the "use and toss" mentality of many consumers... which, in turn, is created by and encouraged by the manufacturers. It's very telling that we can get a new printer for less than the cost of replacement ink. And if the printer actually does break down? Again, it's cheaper to just buy a new one than to pay to have it repaired.
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Ink
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Ink
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Bologna
The printer manufacturer can license there ink to 3rd party companies but they refuse to do that. The reason why is it's a way to keep the price of ink artificially high.
The other reason why ink is so much is because the printer company wouldn't be able to charge a click charge (price per page printed) like they do with companies. It wouldn't be feasible for the consumer market.
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CIS
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Dirty Painting
I was thinking that conceivably there is a printer manufacture in México or South America somewhere that sales comparatively cheap ink cartridges that goes with their printers? Probably would work just as well on most conventional printer usage. I’m thinking that foreign nations are using different ink bases some sort of cheaper version of our Americanized made in China type ink along with cheaper chips on their cartridges. Probably even a government mandatory ink base that they all use in these foreign nations. Like the price of Kuwaiti high octane gas because the people can’t afford it they use sugar gasoline in Brazil. Granted their inks might be cheap-rate in many ways still probably worth checking out.
Example, lets say we take paint that would go into a black spray paint can for a dollar take out the bad odors we reengineer it to inject into a cartridge some how and operational in a printer? Use that paint as our INK. Obviously that paint is cheap as DIRT and if there was some how to utilize that type of paint because it would dry fast and it is in abundances. (also could be rust resistant lol) I could probably obtain 30 spray cans for the amount of money we can put in one ink cartridge. I would like to see a comparison of car spray paint prices for the amount a large office pay’s for ink cartridges. Let’s say that a car paint job would cost you 10,000 ink cartridges x $30.00’s per cartridge equals out to $300,000 thousand dollars or lets say you are painting a house and that would take 5 million ink cartridges at $30 dollars each that would be a $150,000,000 million dollar paint job on your average american home. Maybe I should open up a store and sell some ink LOL Now if I have to print something really big I kinda believe it would be cheaper to go to Kinko’s then printing it my freaking self.
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Completely within the 'spirit' of the patent syste
"The exclusive right granted to a patentee in most countries is the right to prevent or exclude others from making, using, selling, offering to sell or importing the claimed invention."
In return for giving up the details of your invention, you get exclusive rights. These things are not cheap - either in development costs or patent filing costs, so if a company really has something patentable and is awarded a patent on it, they have every right to defend that patent. Why would Epson, HP or Canon put all the money into developing better printers and ink if it was just going to get copied as soon as it came out.
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Re: Completely within the 'spirit' of the patent s
But the patent system is there to protect inventions. The printers, with their clever technology, sure! But cartridges are protected by patents that are not innovative. My comopany has been sued by Epson, and we are in a legal dispute that has now run 10 months. The patents are NOT for anything innovative, and they are patents for the sake of it. Global corporations then abuse the legal system and know that the little guy cannot afford to even contest it.
We are fighting them, but not everyone can, and I am very well versed on ink cartridge patents in relation to Epson - they are a farce, and we are going to take their patents apart in the courts.
As for technology for inks - we make cartridges that independent labs have tested that BEAT OEM cartridges on performance for less than half the price, without infringing.
You can get these reports at Inkrite.com. If we get support from buyers, we will work to break the shackles of OEM's
Have a look at the site - make your own minds up!
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Re: 3rd party ink
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bad quality epson ink
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foolish americans (and probably europeans too!)
countries, who can't afford to buy ink cartridges (imports with high taxes) aren't refilling using "3rd party inks that damage the print heads"??? I've been refilling for many years now and as long as you buy your ink from respectable suppliers that sell good quality ink (mostly companies in Canada) I can assure you that NOTHING is going to happen to your printer. I worked for a paper mill once and I know how chip the cost of ink is...less costly than bottled water.
Don't let these companies scare you with their tactics that ONLY THEIR INK, DESIGNED FOR THEIR PRINTERS IS THE ONE YOU SHOULD BUY TO AVOID "DAMAGING" YOUR PRINTER....there are two words that apply to these companies: RIP-OFF!! (LOTS OF GREED!)
I'm happy to see China growing fast and I hope some day that country will saturate the market with low price ink..
I'll be very happy indeed to see Epson and other companies going out of the ink market.
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foolish americans (and probably europeans too!)
countries, who can't afford to buy ink cartridges (imports with high taxes) aren't refilling using "3rd party inks that damage the print heads"??? I've been refilling for many years now and as long as you buy your ink from respectable suppliers that sell good quality ink (mostly companies in Canada) I can assure you that NOTHING is going to happen to your printer. I worked for a paper mill once and I know how chip the cost of ink is...less costly than bottled water.
Don't let these companies scare you with their tactics that ONLY THEIR INK, DESIGNED FOR THEIR PRINTERS IS THE ONE YOU SHOULD BUY TO AVOID "DAMAGING" YOUR PRINTER....there are two words that apply to these companies: RIP-OFF!! (LOTS OF GREED!)
I'm happy to see China growing fast and I hope some day that country will saturate the market with low price ink..
I'll be very happy indeed to see Epson and other companies going out of the ink market.
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Epson Faulty ink cartridge's
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Epson Inks
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epson
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It's over for me
(The greedy bastards would make plenty of money even if they reduced their price by 80%)
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No more Epson for me...
After being on the Phone for almost an Hour doing ridiculous things the "Tech" told me to do, including digging the old Cartridges out of the trash and replacing the new ones.
They told me I need to buy another Printer...
I told them they where right, I'm going back to HP Printers and try to get the bad taste of Epson out of my Mouth...
After researching I found out why my Printer doesn't accept the new Cartridges.
Epson changed the code in the Cartridge Chip that makes them incompatible with older Printers thus making us think our Printers are broken and getting us to buy a new one.
Epson is cutting off its Nose to spite its Face here.
So long Epson! I just hope HP isn't doing the same thing...
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Epson Boycott
At the end of the day, we the consumers pay for Epson's greed. It must be mighty expensive to keep coming up with new chips and printers that destroy themselves if we don't act like good sheep and buy their cartridges.
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