HP Launches Ink Patent Violation Manhunt 337
BlueCup writes to tell us that Hewlett-Packard has deployed a large team consisting of many scientists and many more lawyers looking for possible ink patent infringement. With more than 4,000 patents on their ink formulations and cartridge design and a market share of more than 50 percent in the US HP depends heavily on the sale of ink to make profit after sometimes selling their printers at a loss in order to lock in the ink resale.
Perhaps.. (Score:5, Funny)
Hewlett-Packard has deployed a large team consisting of many scientists and many more lawyers ... [HP have] a market share of more than 50 percent in the US HP depends heavily on the sale of ink to make profit after sometimes selling their printers at a loss in order to lock in the ink resale.
Two days ago I was attempting to print a B&W document on my HP inkjet printer and it paused .. printed a line and paused .. then stuck. I form-fed the sheet it had stalled on and found
a large amount (at HP rates, about $4 worth) of ink pooled on the paper, as if it had taken a widdle and forgot where it was before this well-timed potty break. After cancelling the print job and powering down and up again the printer, I tried again. Same results. Perhaps they could explain why this is happening.
It's simple, sir, HP depend upon your regular purchase of ink and you haven't bought enough recently to ensure sustained profits. It's another of our patented business processes. Get out and buy some more, there's a good chap.
HP ink? (Score:2, Insightful)
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BTW All the Samsung printers work on Linux and OS X too. You can use the drivers from Samsung or the gimp print.
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http://world4.monstersgame.co.uk/?ac=vid&vid=4701
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it's come to this for HP (Score:5, Insightful)
So, now HP needs to chase down violators to protect itself. If only HP had continued to pay attention to quality, maybe HP would not need to worry about this kind of activity.
Fifteen years ago, the only brand of printer I would buy was HP. Partly because HP was on point, but also because I'd always associated HP with quality as job one (actually, I guess that was supposed to be Ford). HP calculators, printers, electrical instruments, all quality products for years I'd faithfully used with trust.
Then came the second HP printer I'd ever bought, a deskjet, and I don't remember its model number. I do remember it suddenly either would pick up no sheets of paper for printing, or pick up 2 or 3 at a time. The fix?
I give HP credit, they did offer a fix. But it involved a scary piece of software and an even scarier piece of hardware with steel wool pads (I'm not kidding) you had to insert into the feed rollers -- and when all was done, you had a better performing (not perfect) printer and a heck of a mess to clean up. (Though I did get a free dental appointment once by bringing in my contraption and applying the HP "fix" to their HP printer!)
An anomaly?, a tiny blip on the radar? Nope. The next printer I bought, also HP Deskjet, fell apart so many times because of cheap plastic assembly I became an expert in the insides of the machine.
Still, I faithfully recommended HP printers to friends and family, but there were a disturbingly large and consistent number of "incidents" with these new printers. They were either balky in their performance, had ink problems, were virtually impossible to install, or keep installed. I gave up on HP about three or four years ago. Sadly, it's tinged my opinion of HP in general, from HP-UX, to HP-41X RPN calculators, probably unfairly since I think they still make some of the best electronics.
HP decided to go the route of making money on their printer ink, and sell their printers sometimes below cost -- that's kind of the disposable razor idea -- not necessarily a bad idea, but if it comes at the sacrifice of making reliable printers, I'm out.
HP's obsession with cost cutting, chasing down patent cheaters, etc., these are not the signatures of a class technology company.
Disposable Razor IS bad (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Disposable Razor IS bad (Score:5, Interesting)
Guess what happened?
Yep, it fell apart. Within six months, too. The printer was in a completely unfixable state as the head no longer moved on the track. I tried to find the problem, but eventually just gave up and threw it away. I then bought a cheap Lexmark that has been working ever since. (And God do I wish I could get rid of printers altogether. I use it so rarely that I get maybe 50 pages out of a $40 cartridge! %#@$# ink "lifetime" timers.)
Basically, HP cashed in on their reliability reputation, and is now paying the price.
Re:Disposable Razor IS bad (Score:5, Interesting)
I won't be buying another ink-jet printer....ever*. I wouldn't even get 50 pages out of the inks before it clogged and reported problems, or 'empty'.
I have a solid Samsung Laser (1610 maybe?) I bought 5 *years* ago. Still going strong. only B & W but hey, I don't need color all that often (that's what work is for...ha).
My next purchase will be a laser 'all in one' that will be B & W too. Mostly because I'm not ready to shell out $500-700 for the all in one color monsters for my own small needs.
*Unless you need to do uber-quality photo prints, ink-jets are relics.
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Now that you mention it, that's exactly what I'm thinking of doing. Color doesn't matter much to me, so I've been seriously considering an inexpensive B&W laser. I used to use one from Epson when I was a kid, and I'd get thousands of pages out of a single toner cartridge! (Ah yes, the days when technical documents were long and screen space was short.)
Unfortunately, I keep trying to wish the printer out of my life. Invariably, something comes along that requires it, so I'm back to square
Re:Disposable Razor IS bad (Score:4, Informative)
Shoot, go on eBay and look for a used laser, you can get them a dime a dozen.
Also, if you choose carefully, and get the same models they use where you work....you'll never have to buy toner again.
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I tried pointing out that the tracking was more expensive tha
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You're telling me that a $40 cartridge I purchase at Office Depot is a sample?
I didn't think so. The reason why I only get 50 pages is because I rarely print anything. So the printer decides that the "lifetime" of the ink is expiring [about.com], so it goes ahead and shuts down the cartridge or uses more ink.
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That should read "Even if you need to do uber-quality photo prints".
In the last couple of years all the places that offer photo services have gone out and bought really expensive commercial printers to run off everyone's digital pictures. These things are self calibrating and completely automated. You send your carefully cropped and adjusted jpg to the pimply faced youth at Costco with the box "no auto correction" checked, specify the p
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Actually, we did the math a few months ago. If all you print are 4x5 prints, then yes, it is cheaper at places like CostCo, but those places overcharge so obscenely for 8x10 prints that the cost of printing with an inkjet printer is a fraction of the cost of sending it out.
Not to mention that there is a delay associated with having someone print your photos and the added effort of going to the store to pick them up. This means that you basically need to send it in quantities for it to make sense. Havin
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Inkjet printers are designed to do one thing and one thing only: They turn full ink cartridges into empty ones. Any printing that is done in the process is incidental.
Once mankind comes to terms with this fact and decides that the companies that design and sell them should not be rewarded, life will be better for all.
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Surprisingly I've found the Dell Color Lasers to fit this bill.
I have a 3010cn that while the initial purchase was close to $600 the ink last forever and is fairly cheap. BTW when you goto purchase price the ink seperate from the machine, option to purchase the ink at the same time charges you a whole lot more for some reason.
Even still it may seem like a lot of money for ink but realize each cartridge is 2000 pages of JUST THAT COLOR.
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Two reasons the disposable razor model works (Score:2)
2) Insurance (or lack of). A printer that costs $100-$300 is usually below most people's threshold to purchase insurance, but above their threshold to purchase a replacement should it break down (i.e. they'll try to get it fixed). A business operates with a larger budge
Re:it's come to this for HP (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, given that 80% of their $5.6 billion in operating profit (from TFA) is derived from ink and toner, they are not going to allow it to slip away. Otherwise they could potentially lose about $4bn in profit.
I'm not defending it, cause I don't agree with it. But they're not going to let that bone go any time soon.
Cheers.
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I'm not defending it, cause I don't agree with it. But they're not going to let that bone go any time soon.
But the thing is that people are getting pissed off at the cheap, but low quality hardware and the chronic extortion-like scheme for keeping ink and toner in the printers.
So, for yet another poor
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Of course we are. But, when they practically give away printers for about $50 when you buy a new camera, PC, or whatever, it seems a grand deal until you spend as much on your first ink catrridge as you did on the printer. Then it doesn't look so good.
But, if you were to spend $200 on a printer vs $50, would the cost of ink go down any?
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And that is exactly why I buy a new HP deskjet printer every single time it runs out of ink. They are $10 less than a new print cartridge and I *usually* end up with a free USB cable out of the deal.
I bought an HP Deskjet 400C on the first day of college in 1997. It worked for 5 years. While printin
Feeling the Heat from Canon (Score:4, Insightful)
What is interesting is that the replacement ink cartridge for Canon costs 67% less than the replacement ink cartridge for HP. The sales critter explained that the HP cartridge is actually integrated into a new printer head: the net is that you must buy both the replacement ink and a new printer head, resulting in the higher cost.
However, printer heads generally last a long time. In the long run, you will save substantial money if you buy the Canon printer.
The Canon printers must be hurting HP in less-affluent countries: Thailand, Eastern Europe, etc.
For whom does the bell toll? It tolls for HP.
Re:Feeling the Heat from Canon (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:it's come to this for HP (Score:4, Interesting)
Now, when it comes to lasers, HP still makes some decent kit. But it's not 1993 anymore. You can't buy a full size Laserjet 4 and expect to run it for the next 12 years. But their big iron is still the class of the market. I've got 4050's and 8100's that have run in the millions of pages and are still faithfully chugging along. Even the smaller laserjets (the 1300 series in particular), while a royal PITA to work on, are for the most part are relieable. That's more than can be said for Lexmark, Tally, or any of the other builders. There have been debacles (Ever seen a laserjet 1100? Actually, ever seen a laserjet 1100 that's not in the process of being thrown from a rooftop?), but they're still the class of the industry, like it or not.
I am just a bit sad that I think of HP as "the printer guys." Back in the day they were all about innovation. we're having good luck with their switches, maybe there's still hope.
Re:it's come to this for HP (Score:5, Interesting)
I resigned to buying a laser - even at the loss of color. Then I discovered that color lasers are now affordable - I was shocked to be able to buy a Dell color laser for $300 shipped (no tax). Toner should last about as long as the printer at the rate we print - we have photos printed at walmart since it is generally cheaper and quality is superior. Only a few cents per page even in color.
Inkjets don't make sense any more - sometimes you have to spend money to save it - and you don't need to spend all that much...
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Perhaps you mean it's the Tao (way) of printing in that is the way things work and we must deal with them.
Zen doesn't mean what you seem to want it to in that context.
Cheers
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Eh?? They don't need printers? Don't they write checks, store files and need directions?
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The better news is that a standard of living in India/China will greatly improve.
The best news is that reaching the 'average' will involve a substantial drop in the quality of life for the West.
A decade from now, Mexico will be putting up a fence to keep Americans away.
2030: 'Tour America, the shithole of the Passific Rim'.
Down with software patents! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Meaning what? (Score:5, Funny)
What I really want is a pony. But failing that, I'll settle for people laughing at my jokes.
You can pry my refill syringe . . . (Score:2)
Um, seriously, I don't have the slightest sympathy for HP. Look at ad circulars from electronics places. If they have a sale or a coupon for ink carts, there's generally fine print at the bottom: "HP excepted."
Um.. (Score:3, Insightful)
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3rd party compatibility (Score:3, Interesting)
This business model leads to bizarre situations (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This business model leads to bizarre situations (Score:5, Insightful)
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BUT...how long is that 500 cartridge going to last me? I've printed maybe 30 sheets off it so far and I've had it over half a year. At this rate, my starter cartridge will probably die of old age before I run it dry.
I could underst
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As an engineer I'm inclined to say it's improperly designed!
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We did that for a while, actually (Score:3, Interesting)
Then we started needing to do high quality work and switched to a Konica Minolta Magicolor 7450. The consummables are cheaper per page, and it even runs in Linux. Ever seen a printer with its own hard drive? It's just wicked cool.
We haven't looked back at HP since.
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We also have a bunch of B
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When you hire more lawyers than scientists (Score:2, Insightful)
They don't selling their printers at a loss (Score:2)
When I buy a computer, the one that come with a free HP printer is cheaper than the same computer without the printer.
I take the printer, print some picture, and when the ink are empty.. I got another printer.
Anyway, I have a cheap and good samsung laser printer for the real thing, and printer photo at pro store are cheaper than printing it at home expectaly with HP ink price !
What a way to show confidence in your business. (Score:4, Insightful)
Really, could HP have more prominently declared that their traditional business model was failing miserably? After all, why try and provide a good or a service unsuccessfully, when you can just throw some patents around and generate instant income? The quality of HP products is no longer in question, because they've dealt their own credibility a far worse blow than any other competitor (or exploding battery) could ever do: they have consciously decided to invest in patent trolling, instead of spending that money on providing better products/service. Way to go, HP. Been taking business lessons from Sony?
Hewlett-Packard of Palo Alto (Score:5, Interesting)
I met a traveller from a silicon land
Who said: Two life-sized cutouts of cardboard [ylem.org]
Stand near Palo Alto. Near it, at 367 Addison Avenue [hp.com],
Half sunk, a shatter'd garage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on a pedestal in Cupertino these words appear:
"My name is Carly Fiorina, queen of queens:
Look on my works, Bill and David, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, outsourced and bare,
The stock options stretch far out of the money.
Who uses ink? (Score:2)
The only reason to use inkjets is if you got one free with your computer. And then use refill kits or off-brand ink (or toss the thing). And don't get me started on how stupid photo printers are.
How many people here still buy ink jets? (Score:2)
HP's business practices are shady (Score:2)
Talk about revenue maximization - short term at least.
So they are in essence selling ignorant consumers on "cheap" ink then jack up prices later on. They really
Patent-go-round (Score:2)
2. Patent a process to compare competing inks for patent violations.
3. Patent a process for extracting money from competitors for patent violations.
4. Piss off all of your customers.
5. Profit?
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Parody of themselves (Score:2)
This should be an episode of "The Office"
Please, oh please! (Score:2)
Do you really need to print that much? (Score:2)
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Indeed. I haven't had a printer for about six years now, since my cheap Canon inkjet printer ran out of ink and I binned it when I moved house. I can't say I miss it. The only times I can think of when I could have used a printer are when I needed to refer to some information away from the computer, but I find a small notepad and a pen work just fine in most of these cases. (I've been using the same notepad for the past few years, too, and I've used less than half of the sheets in it.)
therapy (Score:2)
My friend
Won't buy another inkjet printer... (Score:2)
Have two now, trashed a third. All have trouble printing at intervals. That is, it's often weeks before I want to print something in color again. Pretty much means a new cartridge or a cleaning expedition every time I want to print a page in color.
Besides, the HP software is horrible.
Anyone know of a good, reasonably priced, networked color laser?
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I used to recommend HP to all my customers and even family and friends, but that changed about a years ago, when my expensive HP 2000c colour printer, refuse to print.
After investigating I found out that the HP cartridges have a chip that records the installation date and regardless of the ink levels will stop printing after x months.
This really anyone me, I felt that HP were stealing my hard earned cash, by stopping me using the full level of ink in my (property) cartridges
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Really designed to be a workgroup printer and it is a bit large, but the footprint isn't really all that much larger
Booo inkjet, yeah laser! (Score:2)
Inkjet printers? Forget about those. Companies sell them at cost (or even at loss) so you'll end up paying way more than laser (
Here's a thought (Score:2)
HP are just pissed that others only supply kits because printer ink refills are absu
What's worse is the intentional lack of standards (Score:2)
And guess what - just when people began all getting what are basical
America's Hostile Business Environment (Score:2)
This is a new kind of hostile business climate in America. The tax environment and regulatory oversight is certainly less than prior decades, but it seems the business environment is even more hostile with big business being able to easily dictate market c
Ink more than its weight in gold (Score:3, Interesting)
It does seem to be more than a good champagne: http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/07
Considering ink was one of mankinds first inventions, somewhere after the spear, fire and the wheel, basing/monopolizing a business on that is either pure genious or complete insanity.
Inkjet Ink vs Good Booze (Score:5, Funny)
Dom Perignon - $145 / 750 milliliters = $0.19 per milliliter
Use a Laserjet (Score:3, Interesting)
If I need something printed in color I just print it out at work on a color laser printer or take it to Office Depot.
Hold yer horses (Score:5, Informative)
Case 1. HP suing people for violating their "cartridge design" patents. Without hearing anything else, this sounds like HP's suing people who make replacement cartridges that fit their systems (including any chipping), which sounds pretty low. We've seen this once with Lexmark (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexmark_Int'l_v._St
Cases 2. HP suing people for violating their ink formulations. (All that stuff about using GC, the "egg yolk" test, etc.) Here HP may not be full of BS. Inks aren't as simple as you might think -- they are highly engineered formulations that must disperse into tiny droplets for spraying by the ink jet, they must not bleed, they must not fade in light, etc. This is on my turf, so I'll lecture for a bit.
The inks are made from specific combinations of pigments and dyes, which could have been used for centuries or been made in a lab last week. The dyes and pigments are then mixed with other chemicals that will disperse them in a solution and keep them from settling over time. The pigment, dye, or dispersant can be a new chemical substance and granted a material patent. The specific combination of ingredients, including how they are mixed together, can be granted a process patent.
Unlike software patents, the patents in the paragraph above cover tangible things (pigments, dispersants, dyes, and formulations). They can be circumvented and you can prove if you are infringing or not with some straightforward lab tests. Some simplistic examples: If HP has a patent on an ink that is 25% A, 50% B, and 25% C, I can sell an ink that is 50% A, 30% B, and 20% C and not infringe. If the dye molecule in HP's material patent absorbs at 590-610 nm and the dye molecule I sell absorbs at 550-585 nm, I am not infringing. Smart companies change the competitor's formula just enough to avoid violating patents, while being able to have approximately the same performance.
HP may find people copying their patented chemicals or formulations and prosecute them to he fullest extent of the law. They may find instead competing companies coming out with similar but noninfringing products at a low price that the consumer actually likes. In that case, hopefully the market will clear things up instead of a bunch of suits.
(Of course the cynic in me thinks they'll still sue the people who are not infringing their material or process patents in the hope of intimidating them.)
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As for patent law, I guess HP are claiming that their method of making ink (i.e. by mixing certain chemicals in a certain way, or certain treatment processes) are sufficiently "advanced" they warrant protection. Specific rants about how screwed up patent law is can be left out at this poin
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And the DCMA is American legislation, and also not valid outside the USA.
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secondly... I was under the distinct impression that formulations were not patentable, only methods of manufacture...
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Which printer maker is not a patent-enforcing-drm-encoding bastard, so that I can toss out my current printers and buy theirs instead?
Bic.
Here's their latest non DRM-ed model: Printer with sample printout [bicworld.com]
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Re:So what printer maker isn't a scumbag? (Score:5, Informative)
The printers have ink level sensors that tell you when the ink gets low and then prompts you to replace the cartridge. However, when that happens, you can clearly see there is no ink inside the cartridge. However, there is sometimes ink still in the sponge. If you don't want to waste that, the printer lets you override it and continue printing. I regularly do this. After the cartridge is reported as empty, I'll print a few 8x10 photos, pull out the cartridge and see if the sponge is saturated or starting to dry. If it still has considerable ink absorbed in the sponge, I'll put in back in and print a few more. However, be careful not to overdo it. I've heard that it's very bad for the print head if it actually runs dry.
And to top it all off, when a cartridge actually runs out and needs to be replaced, most of the canons I've seen use individual cartridges for each color, so you don't throw out a half full magenta cart when the cyan runs out.
Re:Epson ? (Score:4, Informative)
My Canon i960, on the other hand, rocks my world...
- quiet
- fast
- never, ever clogs
- individual ink tanks
- no chip in the tanks
- uses a clever optical scheme with a prism in the tank to read the ink level.
- replaceable print head (not that I've needed to)
And Canon has not engaged in any absurd DMCA or patent barratry against anyone yet (that I know of.) They've just done a fantastic job of not pissing me off, unlike HP and Lexmark.
Ok, their ink cartridges still cost a bundle. And their newer cartridges designs have chips... but they're still the best of a bad lot as far as I'm concerned.
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