Digital BW, The Print

Jens,

The ruling only affects printers with on-carriage cartridges and these
are 13" and smaller. The 3800 uses remote ink carts, but I do not
think anyone has yet made a CIS or cartridge for that printer.

The best thing you can do besides writing the President which will be
a pro-active feeling, is buying a supply of CIS systems. They too are
subject to the ruling and you will want to act quick as supplies will
run out. But hoarding cartridges is not a good idea. Switch to bottles
as its more economical and will allow you to continue buying inks for
a long time. Even a hoard of cartridges eventually runs out.

The sale of inks is not affected nor does it affect carts for large
format printers (off-carriage). However, most large format printmakers
use refillable carts anyway to reduce costs.

I think that refilling is also the best solution for the ecology.
While the impact of b&w is small on the environment, the impact of
color is huge. But any individual effort to not throw away a cartridge
is a great effort as far as the environment is concerned. I live in
Vermont and how we manage waste is very strict here.

The biggest impact will be on new desktop users who will never have
the chance to try. Existing users will find their way or upgrade to
larger formats.

It also does not affect our European customers who can continue to buy
desktop cartridges from our European resellers. But Europe will not be
allowed to sell into the USA, because USA does not have free-trade
like the EU enjoys.

regards,

Jon Cone

PS  please write the President - you just never know....


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "JensGerbitz"
<jensgerbitz@...> wrote:
>
> Can someone clarify whether the 3800, or any 17" printer, would be 
> considered desk-top, i.e. affected by this law?
> 
> I guess this means that people should stock up on cartridges asap... 
> I have a 1280 and R220.
> 
> Also, I'm assuming that the sale of ink won't be affected directly.  
> In the long run (as new desk top printers are introduced to market) 
> it probably would be due to falling demand because of the lack of 
> refillable cartridges.
> 
> This is not great news.
> 
> Jens
> 
> 
> 
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "john dean" 
> <deanwork2003@> wrote:
> >
> > There has also recently been a successful lawsuit against makers of
> > carts cloned from HP and HP won. I'm not sure about Canon.
> > 
> > It seems to me, though I know little of the specifics of engineering
> > these things, that what is needed is a totally unique ink delivery
> > system for desktop units that does not infringe upon the patents 
> held
> > by these corporations. From a user persective it appears that 3rd
> > party ink manufacturers have depended on almost exact copies of
> > Epson's chipped carts and hoped for the best. Even the cis units use
> > Epson cloned carts in them. Now they will be highly motivated to
> > create their own totally uniqe designs, possibly made here in the US
> > to avoid the import fears that foreign companies certainly will
> > respond to. If end users can fill their own from bulk inks it may 
> end
> > up being a postive thing for us consumers. Buying little quantities 
> of
> > ink in tiny carts is a rip off anyway in my opinion, regardess who
> > fills them.
> > 
> > I'll be there will be a lot more court battles to come though. As of
> > right now Epson has the small desktop suppliers on the run. I think 
> we
> > all knew this was going to happen eventually. Of course Bush is 
> going
> > to sign it, if he can read it. He might have to have Cheney read it 
> to
> > him and show him where to sign though.
> > 
> > john
> >
>