It seems that, if HP have got anything to do with it, cheaper replacement cartridges may be a thing of the past. Of course, this scenario is a long way off, but it seems like HP have upped their plan of attack against companies that produce cheap HP printer cartridges.
At the moment the legal action is taking place in Poland. Here, one of the biggest players in the printing industry, HP, has sued three different companies for infringing on their patents. Whilst two have reached settlements already with the company, there is a third which is still being decided in the courts.
This isn’t the first action that HP has taken against the cheap ink cartridge producers however. In fact, towards the end of the last year HP managed to succeed against a number of companies in Spain. So why are HP starting a war? Well, they claim that it is important that their innovative product designs are protected, after all, it is them that spends time and effort to bring the product to market, and thus they don’t want other people jumping on the bandwagon relying on the technology that HP has produced without putting any effort into the research and development.
So what has happened to the companies which have reached a settlement? Well, two large companies which manufacture the company’s cartridges for resale around Europe have agreed to stop producing the cartridges with immediate effect. In addition to this, they have also had to pay the legal costs that HP had to pay in order to bring the case to court.
As mentioned previously however, one company thus far has refused to reach a settlement with HP. Instead they want to take the fight to the courts, and they believe that they have a right to continue to produce the cartridges. It is unknown how this fight is going to progress, although at the moment a good deal of evidence seems to point in favour of HP.
As you are probably aware, for many years now these replacement cartridges have been the bane of printer manufacturer’s lives. After all, a great deal of them earn profit from the sale of cartridges and make a loss on the printer (or just about a break even) with the intention of doing this. However, many of the non-branded cartridges on the market are actually up to half the price of the branded ones, and often the same quality. This means that decision for the consumer is already made for them pretty much.
So what does this mean for the industry? Well, it is unlikely that the alternative print cartridge industry is going to be eliminated any time soon, however, it is clear that if this lawsuit succeeds that it will start a chain reaction in a number of different courts. This means that more and more people may need to turn towards recycling i.e. have their cartridges refilled with ink as opposed to purchasing directly from manufacturers if they want to save a bit of money.