Lawsuit Over Cartridge Deception

Have you found that your ink cartridges are running out faster than you think they should? It may not be your imagination -- HP is being sued by a Georgia woman, who alleges that their smart-chip technology "deceives consumers into buying new inkjet cartridges before the ink has run out."

According to an article in the Mercury News, the suit says that "The smart chip is dually engineered to prematurely register ink depletion and to render a cartridge unusable through the use of a built-in expiration date that is not revealed to the consumer.''

HP, on its side, says that this is on purpose -- the cartridges are designed to automatically "fail" on a specific date because older ink breaks down and can damage printer heads.

The lawsuit seeks to represent anyone in the United States who purchased certain HP inkjet printers since Feb. 2001. The models that qualify are the HP Deskjet 812C, 804C and 842C, and commercial printers 2000C and 2500C.So if you fall into this category, you might want to keep your eye on this one...

MercuryNews.com | HP sued over printer technology

Mac News: Legal: Ink Expiration Prompts Suit Against HP