Re: New "Smart" Cartridges

["Richard N. Moyer" <dickmoyer@earthlink.net>]

<x-flowed>A manufacturer can require the use of his "parts" in his machine, 
whenever he wants without violating any law. No one "owns" the market 
for that "part" except the manufacturer. He may "give away the right" 
to anyone he chooses, and then rescind that give away anytime he 
wants, within limits of contracts. That part can be any convoluted 
thingamajig which only incidentally holds ink. But he has a perfect 
right to be the only supplier of that particular part, for his 
machine. The ink suppliers operated "at the pleasure" of Epson, in 
that Epson "allowed" a non-Epson "part" to be used in their machine - 
with apparent impunity. Meaning, they didn't enforce their warranty, 
which explicitly states that the warranty is voided by use of 
non-Epson inks. So now they are enforcing it. For whatever reasons.

The fact that others (HP) are also doing it is a "so what". Sherman 
Act doesn't come close to illigalizing any of this. Nobody is 
stopping anybody from entering the printer business. Or the ink 
business. Or the paper business. The fact that it may result in 
higher prices (not much, see other posts) may be the reality of the 
industry economics - - the right to earn a return sufficient to 
sustain the business.


>Doesn't this sound anti-competitive and like a potential violation of US
>anti-trust law?  HP and Epson are both intentionally reducing the choices
>available to their customers by purposefully creating impediments to
>competitors.  There is no question that this results in higher prices to the
>consumer, just compare the per ounce cost of bulk third party inks to OEM
>inks.
>
>Dave Grenier
>Olympia, WA
>>  ------------------------------
>>
>>  Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 21:30:21 -0700
>>  From: "Gary L. Hunt" <glh@srv.net>
>>  Subject: Re: New "Smart" Cartridges
>>
>>  At 06:49 PM 2/23/2000 -0500, J. Arthur Davis wrote:
>>  >New Epson Photo Printers Feature "Smart" Ink Cartridges!
>>  >
>snip
>>
>>  (2) While denying the cartridge design is explicitly intended to
>>  prevent refilling, they did admit that it is intended to prevent the
>>  user from utilizing all the ink in the cartridge, on the grounds that
>>  this is bad for the printer (which appears to be one of those
>>  disingenuous claims that is hard to refute even if it may not be
>>  true, judging from the experience of users on this list.)
>>
>>  There is also some discussion of copyrights asserted by the
>>  cartridge, which may (or may not) be designed to prevent them
>>  from being legally reused.  To put this in context, however, the
>>  article does note that they are basically following in HP's footsteps
>>  with regard to putting both technical and legal difficulties in
>>  the way of refillers and independent ink marketers.
>>
>>  Gary Hunt <glh@srv.net>
>
>
>-
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