Forcing the Cartridge Issue

Buying a printer isn't what makes printing expensive -- it's constantly replacing the ink or toner cartridges. One way to lessen the expense is to buy cartridges from a third-party company -- in other words, a company other than the one that manufactured the printer. However, as you can imagine, the printer manufacturers don't like that.

A company called Static Control Components (SCC) has fired another salvo in its battle against Lexmark for the right to supply third-party cartridges. Lexmark has a line of laser printers (T520, T620 and T630) which use a technology that verifies that the toner cartridge in the machine is from Lexmark. Otherwise, the printer won't run. Last year, SCC was stopped from replicating these cartridges by a court injunction.

However, the SCC may have found a way around the problem. In the last week of February, they started selling cartridges that include additional benefits such as ink management. So far, according to news reports, Lexmark hasn't objected.

This isn't a landmark case, by any means. Other printer manufacturers also discourage users from buying third-party cartridges. However, they don't hardwire their printers to stop the practice. Hopefully, they'll never see the need to.