Unfair monopolies or patent infringements? I haven't followed this issue closely but I would think the rulings could only come about because third parties violated Epson and other companies' patents. If that is the case than I welcome the verdict.

I don't know the legal issues involved in the case, but it's hard for me to be sympathetic toward third-party ink suppliers. My one experience with MIS inks was a disaster. I could not get a satisfactory BW print with their Eboni Black ink, no matter how I adjusted the color management workflow or which profile I used. Worse than that, the printer (Epson 1280) clogged severely on an almost daily basis, requiring at least three head cleaning routines to clear the nozzles. Head cleanings suck up ink the way NFL fans suck up beer, and the end result was frequent cartridge replacement and higher cost. No, thanks.

Speaking of cost, I now buy my Epson inks (and paper) for both my printers from atlex.com which is considerably cheaper than buying from the Epson on-line store or our local Staples, especially if you place orders large enough to make the shipping cost effective.

Another vote for Atlex.
BTW, are any of the third party inks tested for arcival quality?

The URL for Wilhelm Imaging Research is:

http://www.wilhelm-research.com/

Navigating the site is a bit of a challenge, but I did find some test results for Epson inks vs. several third-party inks (not MIS), apparently all "consumer grade" stuff:

http://www.wilhelm-research.com/epson/durabrite.html

The results for the third party inks look pretty shabby....

Frans,

This particular ruling can be read by anyone interested at: http://searchapp.usitc.gov/edis3/app

Bill,

I am sorry you had a bad experience with MIS Associates Eboni black. I have had similar discouraging adventures as I have reported in Shutterbug in a couple of articles on the subject of B&W printing.

However, some months ago I converted an Epson R800 (also works with R-1800) to use MIS Associates Ebony ink in three of its ink channels for B&W printing using a Roy Harrington Quad Tone Rip to drive the B&W printing - and this system allows normal color printing with the Epson driver. The ink/printer marriage of the R800 and MIS Associate Ebony has been running great with this much used utility printer and produces just about the best, and very neutral B&W prints and does not adversely affect color printing.

I think a lot of the problems with older model Epson printers like you and I had was due to the fact those printers were designed for dye inks, while the R800, R1800 and 2000P, 2200 and 2400 Epson printers are designed to use pigment inks which MIS Associates Ebony is.

Even if you get a good percentage off list price through your vendor atlex.com, you are still paying a huge amount for the Epson cartridge which contains just a fraction of the price worth of ink if bought in bulk.

David,

Legally, you are on pretty shaky ground. The judge ruled in favor of Epson, apparently because Epson's patents did not create a monopoly situation. Nobody forces you to buy Epson or other peoples inks, or printers or paper for that matter. There is ample competition in the market place.

It looks to me that Epson defended its patents and justice prevailed and I can only welcome such an outcome.

Frans,

I am not a lawyer, and my position was not based on my limited understanding of the field, but on the understanding of an attorney in this field who is both a digital printing enthusiast and was one of the government attorneys in the monopoly case the government pursued and won against Microsoft.

And the ITC ruling is not supporting Epson ink patents, but their patents on their cartridges. The order enjoins any independent from making or selling ink cartridges that are compatible with Epson printers. If you can't get or use compatible cartridges it would be pretty hard to market an ink competing with Epson.

And this ITC ruling will you can be sure will be a precedent for Canon and HP as well.

Sorry Fran I see the ruling is in support of a monopoly limiting competition in the ink market. It would be the same as a camera company because their camera body lens mount is patented, not allowing other lens manufacturers to sell lenses with a compatible mount, so if you had a Nikon camera you could only use Nikon brand lenses, not Sigma, Tamron or Tokina.

Bill,

You may be getting some savings on Epson cartridges, but I checked Atlex.com for their price on cartridges for my Canon wide format printer, and the saving was just 2.6%.

Even the very best ink sold in bulk to commercial wide format print services, the cost for the amount of ink in one Atlex Epson R2400 cartridge would be much less than a dollar of the $11.20 price their charging per cartridge, so you are paying over $10 for an empty cartridge and pennies for the ink.

Does that seem justified? Only if the business model is to sell printers at or below cost and make your profits on the ink, ala Polaroid.

Personally I believe I'd rather pay what a printer is really worth, and like paper be able to shop for the best ink at the best price, than be forced to buy ink only from one source.

David,

The judge apparently saw it differently. He/she more than likely knows a lot more about our laws than you and me combined so I don't think second guessing is appropriate. To me it looks like Epson defended its patents and won; good for them and shame on those that violated those patents.

The logic flow in such a case isn't overly complicated. Is the patent valid and if so do similar products infringe on that patent. If the shoe were on the other foot and instead involved someone's copyright, I doubt anyone here would take an opposing viewpoint if it was a violation of the copyright on one of their images.

However, the ruling by the ITC is not the final say. It still must pass oversight and even then can be stayed by a federal court as occured in the patent dispute over cell phone chipsets. That ITC ruling has been stayed as a federal court judge determined it would be too injurious to the American public.

An additional item to consider in this age of digital imaging and the need for ever increasing storage, the ITC also made a recent ruling finding most of the popular hard drive companies are in violation of a controller chip patent and ruled those hard drives may no longer be imported.

Frans,

I would rather think that the decision ignored facts on the basis of ideology rather than law, and the influence of over 18,000 corp[orate and special interest lobbyists in Washington, DC.

The patents involved provide the printer companies with a monopoly protecting them from competition. It is question of whether the patent is in conflict with the laws passed generations ago making monopolies and cartels illegal in the US as a protection of the citizens from the uncompetitive practices of business.

In this case I see it as a result the people loose and big business wins.

I would have to agree with your description of the situation. But patents can be trumped by US law that makes monopolies illegal if a patent gives companies a protection from free market competition. So we will see if in review whether the corporations win in this instance or the people do by preserving free market competition.

Personally I believe neither the companies or the public benefit if a product is protected from fair competition in the marketplace if the experience of Polaroid is a fair example.

David,

Silly me! I forgot about those evil big businesses ripping us off all the time!

Frans,

It is not about good or evil, it is whether one supports people over faceless corporations. So now we know you stand with the corporations and not the people. So be it.

David,

Excuse me? When I defend the rights of companies to protect their intellectual properties I don't support people? What have you been smoking lately?

David can correct me or add in but I'd have to say a good example of the point I believe David is trying to make can be found in work I do in public health. There is a vaccine in development for a disease I work to protect people from. Much effort and money has been spent on its research and does show promise. Despite this it isn't expected to see the light of day as the compnay doing the research does not expect it to be fiscally beneficial to the extent they wish. At the same time, it has been indicated they would not allow this vaccine to be brought to market in a fully developed form by a licensee or another buyer. It is their stance that it is their intellectual property to do with as they see fit regardless of public benefit or harm. I would say the underlying concerns of whether what is in the public's best interest trumps the intellectual property protections set in law. This is where, in the case of ITC rulings, appeals can be made of the federal courts. They can weigh whether the remedy does more harm to the public's interest than it attempts to rectify in the marketplace.

Some time ago I did some research on the history of corporation in America which if I recall began in the early 1800's, All corporate charters are essentially limited partnerships, and by limited I mean a owner of corporate stock can not be held responsible for the acts and behavior of the corporation legally. In the earliest state corporation charter laws the state legislatures included provision defining social responsibilities of corporate charter holders. By the mid 1800's those early corporations had hired and sent armies of attorneys to the courts and all the provisions that required corporations to be socially responsible were amended and eliminated from the charters, In addition the corporations used the courts successfully to acquire all the rights and privileges of an individual human citizen applied to the corporate entity. As it stand now the only legal responsibility a corporation has is to show a profit and pay dividends to the stockholders, and they don't always do that these days (Enron!)

I am not anti-business, but I am a believer that freedoms and privileges must be balanced with obligations and responsibilities, and today the system is way out of balance in favor of the corporations to the disadvantage of ordinary citizens.

Enough of politics however, this forum is about photography. Unfortunately sometimes politics rears its ugly head and even affects photographers, as has been noted also about the new regulations in New York requiring licensing and liability insurance to make photographs while on public property.

Hi David,
Where's the monopoly here? Epson, HP, Canon, etc. all make printers, cartridges and ink. Just because Epson enforced a patent that prevents 3rd parties from making ink cartridges for their printers, doesn't give them a monopoly on the inkjet printer market - they have plenty of competition.

Also, in this country, monopolies are not always forbidden. Vertical monopolies where one company controls all aspects of a product are forbidden - think of Ma-Bell before the breakup - AT&T controlled all aspects of your phone service local, long-distance, telephones, and repair. On the other hand a horizontal monopoly - is acceptable depending on how it comes about. There are natural monopolies where economies of scale can make a single monopoly more efficient than a number of smaller competing companies. In this case a monopoly will naturally occur and this in fact benefits the consumer. Microsoft's issues came about not because they are a monopoly - which they aren't anyway - but because of their unfair market manipulation policies. Things like telling computer resellers that they have to pay for a Windows license for every computer they sell whether it has Windows on it or not. This is using their market power to put up unfair barriers to entry for other manufacturers.

First of all if my memory serves the term monopoly was used in the Federal Government complaint against Microsoft, albeit with Microsoft it was dumb luck and the nature of the computer beast that provided them with a defacto monopoly. My position on this may seem semantic, but according to the meaning of the word monopoly includes any legal privilege to control a commodity even if there may be others in that general segment of business.

If I may repeat myself, camera companies like Nikon, Canon, Olympus and Pentax have patents on the design of their camera body to lens mount. It is legally within their rights to not allow any other company, like Tamron, Sigma or Tokina to make a lens with their patented mount. If they did so that would be a control of part of the marketplace by one party. It meets the definition of a monopoly even though there are many different brands of camera.

The printer makers could treat ink supply and replacement in the same way as they treat paper. With any inkjet you can use any brand of paper that is compatible. But because the printer companies chose to use a business model of selling the printers at cost or below and then obtaining their profit from the business from ink sales at highly inflated prices, they used a patented ink cartridge design which they are trying to not allow competitors to use. This is an intentional monopolistic restraint of the free market and competition in the supply of ink.

Personally I have nothing against Epson per se, (in fact I appreciate the fact they pioneered the inkjet photo printer when no other company was interested) I just think the "Polaroid" business model which was first used by George Eastman with the Box Brownie is one that is neither good for the consumer public or for the companies that employ the tactic, in the long run. The inordinately high price of the consumable commodity necessary to this business model, ink in this case, inhibits as much use of the commodity if it were at a price set by fair market competition. This fact does no one any good. And surely the dead (Polaroid) or in the case of Kodak dwindling fortunes of the companies that employ this business model using patent based market control, may be a short-term advantage but is not as sustainable. Would camera companies sell as many SLR cameras if you could only use the camera companies lenses on those cameras? I doubt it.

I could not make heads nor tails of the legal files related to the case so I am not sure what the exact wording is of the patent infringement.

What i have seen though, is reused Epson cartridges. A remanufacturer takes empty epson cartridges, resets the chips and refills with less expensive ink. Not sure what these would cost, but I would guess a 30% to 40% reduction in costs.

I know the patent is for the cartridge design, which is a multi-chambered internal valve design, so would a cartridge that did not imitate the internal structure also be infringement?

I have seen and purchased on eBay, refillable, auto reset cartridges for the Epson 79 series carts. There are also many other models available. I can only guess that these would fall under the patent so they would also be illegal? The internal structure is NOT like the epson cartridge, but the Chip on the end would have to be compatible for the cartridge to work.

Unfortunately, you do not get any proper level metering with the refillable carts.

TOM...