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SCOTUS: Patent Rights Over a Printer Cartridge Are Exhausted When It Is Sold

law.cornell.edu

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Re: SCOTUS: Patent Rights Over a Printer Cartridge Are Exhausted When It Is Sold

#101

Post by ChuckMcM »

gnicholas wrote: post #89
ChuckMcM wrote: post #84

Yay, hopefully this will translate into a non-crazy ink refill situation which will translate into a much reduced price in ink cartridges. My hope is that the following will occur; 1) People who sell re-filled cartridges, and offer to refill your existing cartridges will no longer suffer malicious lawsuits from HP & Lexmark. 2) That will increase the supply and create a price competition between re-fillers. Making it…

Don't forget: 4) if HP & Lexmark are unable to use the DMCA to stop cartridge refillers, then the price of printers will go up, as the printer manufacturers won't be able to make any profit on cartridge sales. They'll instead have to make all their profit on the initial sale of the printer.

I would be ok with that. Too many quality issues are currently swept under the 'well it isn't like you paid very much for the printer is it?' mat.

Re: SCOTUS: Patent Rights Over a Printer Cartridge Are Exhausted When It Is Sold

#102

Post by smw »

tbirrell wrote: post #87
gameshot911 wrote: post #65

Can someone clarify one part: >The other option is to buy a cartridge at a discount through Lexmark’s “Return Program.” In exchange for the lower price, customers who buy through the Return Program must sign a contract agreeing to use the cartridge only once and to refrain from transferring the cartridge to anyone but Lexmark. >As a result, even if the restrictions in Lexmark’s contracts with its customers were clear…

No. That's what SCOTUS is saying. Lexmark is trying to enforce a contract over an item that they do not control. Is like if you signed a contract with me that every time you handed someone a glass of water, you would require them to say "thank you" in a non-native language. I have no control (legal or otherwise) over your actions or the glass or the water, therefore the contract is not enforceable. In the case, Lexma…

I think this is a bad read. See the other two sibling comments.

Re: SCOTUS: Patent Rights Over a Printer Cartridge Are Exhausted When It Is Sold

#103

Post by djrogers »

mmastrac wrote: post #22

Wasn't apple using patents to stop modding of their magsafe cables?

Not modding, but production of alternatives. Most (all?) products that were magsafe compatible that actually made ti to market were hacked up magsafe adapters.

Re: SCOTUS: Patent Rights Over a Printer Cartridge Are Exhausted When It Is Sold

#104

Post by zardo »

pitaj wrote: post #73
awjr wrote: post #14

In short, the sale of a product does not allow you to control what is done with the product afterwards through patent law. I'm assuming this is almost similar to attempts to use copyright law to stop the sale of products on the grey market. http://www.bipc.com/court-rebuffs-attempt-to-use-copyright-l... I do wonder though, if they changed the underlying software on the cartridges they would get into trouble. I do not…

I was under the impression that John Deere's restrictions were licensing-based. But maybe they rely on copyright as well?

They did, untill it they lost the ability to do so under the DMCA back in 2015. All though they could be re-allowed in 2018. The library of Congress gets to reinterpret it every three years.

Re: SCOTUS: Patent Rights Over a Printer Cartridge Are Exhausted When It Is Sold

#105

Post by gnicholas »

socalnate1 wrote: post #91
gnicholas wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget: 4) if HP & Lexmark are unable to use the DMCA to stop cartridge refillers, then the price of printers will go up, as the printer manufacturers won't be able to make any profit on cartridge sales. They'll instead have to make all their profit on the initial sale of the printer.

Isn't this a good thing? I'd rather not companies obfuscate the true cost of the things I buy.

You make a good point that it is good for consumers to be informed. But it is also a good thing for sellers to be able to price discriminate between high-volume and low-volume users, which is made possible by making more profit on the ink than on the printer. If they could not do this then printers would be more expensive than most people would want to pay, even though the cost of production is actually less. So there would be a lost opportunity from gains from trade, which results in decreased total social welfare.

But to reiterate, yes it would be good if we all knew how much cartridges would cost up-front. I've even heard of some printer companies (Samsung, if memory serves) selling printers with half-full toner cartridges, to make the up-front cost even lower. This gives consumers the (false) impression that toner will be cheaper than it is, on the thinking that "I just bought printer + toner for $80, therefore toner obviously costs much less than this". Unfortunately, this isn't true when it's a half-full toner cartridge.

Re: SCOTUS: Patent Rights Over a Printer Cartridge Are Exhausted When It Is Sold

#106

Post by mi100hael »

tbirrell wrote: post #87
gameshot911 wrote: post #65

Can someone clarify one part: >The other option is to buy a cartridge at a discount through Lexmark’s “Return Program.” In exchange for the lower price, customers who buy through the Return Program must sign a contract agreeing to use the cartridge only once and to refrain from transferring the cartridge to anyone but Lexmark. >As a result, even if the restrictions in Lexmark’s contracts with its customers were clear…

No. That's what SCOTUS is saying. Lexmark is trying to enforce a contract over an item that they do not control. Is like if you signed a contract with me that every time you handed someone a glass of water, you would require them to say "thank you" in a non-native language. I have no control (legal or otherwise) over your actions or the glass or the water, therefore the contract is not enforceable. In the case, Lexma…

False. The opinion specifically says Lexmark may have a good breach-of-contract case, but this specific case was a patent case.

Re: SCOTUS: Patent Rights Over a Printer Cartridge Are Exhausted When It Is Sold

#107

Post by ohyes »

awinter-py wrote: post #67
touchofevil wrote: post #48

If you want to learn about a really interesting aspect of the "first sale doctrine" and how it applies to software, you should have a look at "Vernor vs Autodesk" in the USA and compare it to "Oracle vs UsedSoft" in the EU. Basically, in the USA the courts determined that if a company sells you software, but in their terms & conditions claim that they are merely granting you a license, then you can't resell the softw…

Are european secondhand copies resellable in the US?

And if they are, once I've bought the EU copy in the us, can i resell it again?

Re: SCOTUS: Patent Rights Over a Printer Cartridge Are Exhausted When It Is Sold

#108

Post by doikor »

joshuak wrote: post #62
touchofevil wrote: post #48

If you want to learn about a really interesting aspect of the "first sale doctrine" and how it applies to software, you should have a look at "Vernor vs Autodesk" in the USA and compare it to "Oracle vs UsedSoft" in the EU. Basically, in the USA the courts determined that if a company sells you software, but in their terms & conditions claim that they are merely granting you a license, then you can't resell the softw…

That sounds a little better than the ridiculous Autodesk decision, however it sounds trivial to circumvent by simply putting a 'term of license' clause in the EULA. I'd go so far as to say I don't think EULAs should be considered a valid legal instrument.

EULAs in EU are a joke. A "normal" consumer cannot even sign away most of the consumer protection rights even if he wants to.

Re: SCOTUS: Patent Rights Over a Printer Cartridge Are Exhausted When It Is Sold

#109

Post by jandrese »

gnicholas wrote: post #89
ChuckMcM wrote: post #84

Yay, hopefully this will translate into a non-crazy ink refill situation which will translate into a much reduced price in ink cartridges. My hope is that the following will occur; 1) People who sell re-filled cartridges, and offer to refill your existing cartridges will no longer suffer malicious lawsuits from HP & Lexmark. 2) That will increase the supply and create a price competition between re-fillers. Making it…

Don't forget: 4) if HP & Lexmark are unable to use the DMCA to stop cartridge refillers, then the price of printers will go up, as the printer manufacturers won't be able to make any profit on cartridge sales. They'll instead have to make all their profit on the initial sale of the printer.

That would cut the legs out from the Ink Jet market, which IMHO is a good thing. They are the most wasteful and craptastic printers. Making them no longer almost free[1] would make people reconsider getting them and maybe even consider not printing or buying a decent printer.

[1] Before you count the Ink costs of course.

Re: SCOTUS: Patent Rights Over a Printer Cartridge Are Exhausted When It Is Sold

#110

Post by fulafel »

touchofevil wrote: post #48

If you want to learn about a really interesting aspect of the "first sale doctrine" and how it applies to software, you should have a look at "Vernor vs Autodesk" in the USA and compare it to "Oracle vs UsedSoft" in the EU. Basically, in the USA the courts determined that if a company sells you software, but in their terms & conditions claim that they are merely granting you a license, then you can't resell the softw…

It does not work like this in the EU. Most EU countries don't have a case law based ("common law") system, for starters.
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