Canon Refilling is Illegal (well, in Japan anyway)
While we seem to be on the Canon theme this week, it was reported in the press on Tuesday that Canon has won a lawsuit in Japan against a company refilling their ink cartridges. The company, called Recycle Assist, was recycling used Canon cartridges by cleaning and refilling them. Canon alleges that Recycle Assist was infringing their patent as a special leak-preventing structure of the Canon cartridge was being re-used. The Intellectual Property court agreed with Canon even though a a lower court had ruled that what Recycle Assist was doing was technically ‘repair’ and was allowed. The judge ordered all the refilled cartridges be destroyed and that no more may be imported. Recycle Assist plans to appeal the decision. It appears that this judgement only affects Canon against one company in one country, however an ultimate win by Canon may mean that no company anywhere in the world will be able to refill Canon cartridges for sale to consumers. Of course, if Canon wins the other manufacturers won’t be far behind with their litigation too. This will have major repurcussions not just for neighborhood refillers but companies like Cartridge World who are expanding worldwide on the premise that refilling ink cartridges is legal. While I am not a great fan of refilling due to quality issues, I think if people want to get their cartridges refilled they should be allowed to do so. I doubt though that this judgement will affect home users who do their own refilling, although Canon may take action against those selling inks and giving instructions to customers on how to do it. Those companies may be stopped just as companies instructing people how to download illegal mp3’s have been stopped. Let’s wait and see. If you have a comment you would like to add, please do so! Permanent Link |  Del.icio.us
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March 14th, 2006 at 7:05 am
I think Canon and any other printer seller that uses a patented cartridge which prevents third party cartridges or home refills should be required to plainly list this fact as a warning on the outside of the box, like sugar substitutes and some drugs are required to do. I have a Canon iP4200 which is an excellent printer, but goes through ink like a drunken sailor goes through rum. I print few pics and ink refills would do me fine (usually pigment black). Unless they change, I, as a long time Canon fan, will be looking for other multiple ink cartridge printer substitutes when this printer goes belly up.
April 20th, 2006 at 9:03 pm
[…] nks that infringed HP’s patents. (More on this later in the article). Canon recently successfully sued a company which was refilli […]
June 14th, 2006 at 9:31 am
[…] The OEM Manufacturers The major printer manufacturers have a vested interest in making sure that refillers such as Cartridge World don’t succeed. HP, Canon, Epson and Lexmark make alot of money from printer cartridges, and although refillers have only a slice of the market this represents billions of dollars in lost sales. HP last year let off a warning shot over Cartridge World’s bows by issuing a warning that some franchisees were using inks that infringed HP’s patents. (More on this later in the article). Canon recently successfully sued a company which was refilling it’s cartridges. Epson has been stopping companies from making compatibles of it’s cartridges that infringe it’s patents (Cartridge World has it’s own line of compatible Epson and Canon cartridges). […]