SCOTUS: Patent Rights Over a Printer Cartridge Are Exhausted When It Is Sold • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by chias » Wed, May 31, 2017, 1:08 AM UTC

adrianmonk wrote: post #186

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…

Most mobile apps have moved to a model with in-app purchases. I wonder if this rule applies there. If a game is free, but I spend $1.99 on 500 gold coins (in-game currency), does the law require that I be able to sell the gold coins? What about if I use them to buy virtual non-consumable items (like permanent character upgrades)? I assume the law wouldn't apply to consumable items (like spending 50 gold coins to spee…

Generally speaking, this would be a very poor result (from the perspective of said game owners). Pretty much all of us would have our credit card processing contracts revoked, because in all "regular" contracts (e.g. Stripe, Braintree, etc. etc.) you may not use their service to sell goods which can be "readily resold for cash". If that was the legal result, these applications would probably need to stop accepting EU credit cards.

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

#252

Post by cooper12 » Wed, May 31, 2017, 1:17 AM UTC

zeeveener wrote: post #188

3JPLW wrote: post #12

The text is the same, but I find the official PDF better typeset and much more readable: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-1189_ebfj.pdf

What an amazing waste of space on the paper... I mean, yes margins are good, but when you lose 60% of the page to them they might be overbearing.

It's possible that the margins are meant to be cropped by the printer. Though more likely it's just an optimization of line-length, font size, and ink usage. (since ink costs more than paper)

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

#253

Post by _jal » Wed, May 31, 2017, 1:24 AM UTC

exelius wrote: post #111

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…

I think that this distinction is largely becoming irrelevant in the cloud era. Most software is sold / licensed on a term basis these days, and honestly the industry is healthier as a result. App stores are really the only remaining vestige of "buy once, use forever" -- and I'd guess that the EU isn't interested in going after it thanks to the small dollar amount and huge number of companies who benefit. Software was…

Healthy for whom?

Not for people who don't want software to change out from under them. This includes a large number of people and cuts across just about all industries.

Not for people who want portability. "Cloud" services have a horrid habit of holding your data hostage. There's usually lip-service to portability, but for any moderately complex application, there's nothing available to load the data in to.

Not for people who are not connected 24/7. Sure, this number shrinks all the time, but there will always be times when we're offline.

Not for people who consider their data sensitive. Windows 10 should probably be considered malware by anyone who has a nondisclosure agreement with teeth and works on sensitive documents.

It is absolutely better for businesses creating commercial software. Revenue is so much easier to handle.

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

#254

Post by tzs » Wed, May 31, 2017, 1:31 AM UTC

touchofevil wrote: post #220

derefr wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does the European ruling imply for services like Steam, that will sell you a game license-key, but in a way where that key is bound to your particular Steam account? Does it force such keys to be transferrable in Europe? Or force the licensing server to have a "transfer of ownership" API such that it will revoke one key and generate another for the new owner?

I think that this is the big question! I actually started an auction site based on allowing EU users to resell their Steam games (and ios/google play apps) b/c I think due to the Oracle v UsedSoft ruling Steam users should be able to resell their Steam game keys. However, b/c there is no mechanism to transfer keys (or ios apps) between users, there wasn't much my startup could do. There was an attempt in Germany to s…

I think you may be reading too much into all of this.

Oracle sued alleging copyright violation. The ECJ ruled that what UsedSoft was doing was not a copyright violation.

Applying that to Steam, it would imply that if I sold someone my Steam key for a game I had purchased I would not be violating copyright. It does not necessarily imply that Steam has to make or allow the key to work for the buyer. That's out of scope for copyright law.

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

#255

Post by mikekchar » Wed, May 31, 2017, 1:46 AM UTC

owenversteeg wrote: post #49

roywiggins wrote: post #13

When you can cite Lord Coke in your opinion, I guess it's practically mandatory to do so. > As Lord Coke put it in the 17th century, if an owner restricts the resale or use of an item after selling it, that restriction “is voide, because . . . it is against Trade and Traffique, and bargaining and contracting betweene man and man.” 1 E. Coke, Institutes of the Laws of England §360, p. 223 (1628)

Semi-off-topic: I've noticed that Coke's writings are a bit more similar to "modern English" than other things I've read written in the 1600s. This surprised me, because he was a judge and probably wrote in formal language for the time. Formal language, to me, seems perpetually set back to the way people talked about 60-100 years previously. Thus you'd expect Coke to sound like he's writing in the 1500s, but instead…

I don't know a lot about this topic, but my understanding is that (unlike many languages), English evolved where more formal language became popular, and casual/familiar language died away. For example, "you" is the formal version of "thee" (similar to "vous" vs "tu" in French).

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

#256

Post by aaron_m04 » Wed, May 31, 2017, 2:00 AM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #125

LukeShu wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Lexmark can negotiate a contract with its customers (this is unrelated to patent rights). But, if the customer sells the item to a 2nd customer (possibly in violation of the contract), then that 2nd customer is not subject to the contract, as the contract was between Lexmark and the initial customer. SCOTUS is saying that they can't use patents to say you may not sell to anyone else. You can instead use contracts…

It is quite likely that Lexmark sold the cartridge to a reseller (think walmart) who sold it to the consumer. Thus Lexmark may not be able to sue the end users successfully because there was no contract - though they could sue the reseller (walmart in this example). Of course suing your customers is a PR disaster even if you would win. Suing resellers is a bad idea as they will never carry anything you make again whi…

What they could do is make the cartridge inoperable without online activation, in which the customer has to agree to terms of use. Damn, that's evil...

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

#257

Post by aaron_m04 » Wed, May 31, 2017, 2:01 AM UTC

djrogers wrote: post #99

SeanDav wrote: post #50

I can't believe that the printer market has not been disrupted by someone offering a decent printer without ridiculous ongoing printer cartridge costs. I just bought a £99 printer that will cost more than £99 in printer cartridge costs after just a few months of casual use and I did not spot any alternatives.

Assuming you're referring to inkjet style printers - Epson did exactly that with their Ecotank printers. Big (by ink cartridge standards) tanks in the printer you fill up with relatively cheap bottled ink. Got my wife one for the homeschool classroom and it lasts a long time for very little $$.

Where can one buy these printers?

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

#258

Post by mikekchar » Wed, May 31, 2017, 2:12 AM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #124

mbreese wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, assuming the contract was valid. Lexmark could in that case sue their customers that sent cartridges to a re-manufacturer. The only one with a relationship with Lexmark is their customer, so that's the only entity they could sue. (However, given that this isn't a case involving Lexmark and a customer, the court didn't rule on that contract, just acknowledges the possibility.) "If the patentee negotiates a contra…

Maybe, but the remanufacturer would argue back that they didn't take ownership of the cartridge, they just added toner which never transferred ownership.

A sibling post about beer is also interesting. Beer kegs are owned by the brewery -- you buy the beer inside the kegs and you must return the keg. However, it is common for (very) small breweries to refill kegs that aren't theirs. If you buy a keg of beer from brewery A, drink the beer, take the keg to brewery B and ask them to fill it, they often will (if they have time).

Usually, there is a clause in the agreement with the brewery that owns the keg that you will not refill it. However, that's a contract with the customer, not the competing brewery and as far as I know, it is not illegal for the second brewery to refill them (but the customer can be sued).

Let's say the original brewery has a patent on the keg in question. Normally you would not be able to use the keg because you do not have a license to the patent. I think the interesting point here is that if the original brewery retains ownership of the keg, then the second brewery can not refill the keg without infringing on the patent. However, if the brewery sells the keg to the customer, then the customer sells the keg to the second brewery -- the patent is exhausted (in the opinion of given in the link). So the brewery can fill the keg because they own it.

To be honest, while I think a sane law would work this way, I'll bet this is trickier than it seems. Let's say you have a special filling mechanism on the keg that is patented. You can sell the keg to the user. The user can use the keg for it's intended purpose (to dispense beer). The user can then sell the keg (either full or empty) for its intended purpose (to dispense beer). However, they can explicitly say, "We do not transfer the patent rights for filling this keg using our patented filling system". The user signs an agreement stating that they understand that the keg can not be refilled and that they have not bought the rights to the filling system.

In that case, when they resell the keg, how can the patent rights be exhausted? The customer never bought them in the first place.

So I expect SCOTUS will rule against this (unfortunately).

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

#259

Post by icantdrive55 » Wed, May 31, 2017, 2:52 AM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #139

asr wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If what you are hoping for is a situation where manufacturers will sell printers at a loss and then also sell ink at cost, I don't think that's a long-run equilibrium. If you are looking for printers where you can get ink at cost in exchange for paying a bit more up front, that's available now: https://epson.com/ecotank-super-tank-printers Kodak also did this ~10 years ago [1] but I cannot figure out if they still us…

Thanks for the link to the Eco-Tank/Super Tank printers from Epson. I have ordered one of the wide-format ones to see how well it works. Sad that the 'print only' wide format is only available outside the US. Seems like 'print only' is the 'manual transmission' of the printer market :-) What I always hope for, and never expect, is people competing and using engineering quality as a competitive discriminator. I want t…

I just stopped printing when they went to chipped cartridges, and ultra pricy inks.

I personally think the Printing industry shot themselves in the foot trying to weasel out more money from us.

I got an Epson R2400 that just went back into the box years ago.

I used to print so many pictures. It was fun. Now--I only print when really needed.

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

#260

Post by touchofevil » Wed, May 31, 2017, 3:21 AM UTC

tzs wrote: post #254

touchofevil wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that this is the big question! I actually started an auction site based on allowing EU users to resell their Steam games (and ios/google play apps) b/c I think due to the Oracle v UsedSoft ruling Steam users should be able to resell their Steam game keys. However, b/c there is no mechanism to transfer keys (or ios apps) between users, there wasn't much my startup could do. There was an attempt in Germany to s…

I think you may be reading too much into all of this. Oracle sued alleging copyright violation. The ECJ ruled that what UsedSoft was doing was not a copyright violation. Applying that to Steam, it would imply that if I sold someone my Steam key for a game I had purchased I would not be violating copyright. It does not necessarily imply that Steam has to make or allow the key to work for the buyer. That's out of scope…

The UsedSoft v Oracle case is specifically about and whether or not a licensee can resell the software they have purchased.

"On 3 July 2012, the ECJ handed down its landmark decision in UsedSoft GmbH v Oracle International Corp (C-128/11), ruling that the owner of copyright in software cannot prevent a perpetual licensee who has downloaded the software from the internet from selling his ‘used’ licence. This decision has significant implications for the software and other digital industries." [1]

[1] http://www.linklaters.com/Insights/Publication1403Newsletter...