Digital BW, The Print

Joost Horsten wrote:
> Of course Epson's recent US court victory does not apply to Europe, 
> where I'm based (Netherlands). But it would be naive to think it has 
> no effect. Actually I don't know what the legal status of refillable 
> cartridges is in Europe. I assume they're (still?) legal, since I got 
> my 2100 set from the UK. If so, I would not be afraid cartridge 
> manufacturers will stop making them, assuming many of them come from 
> Asia... 
> 
> But encouraged by their success, Epson might aim his arrows to Europe 
> as well. And the leading ink B&W suppliers (Cone & MIS) are US-based. 
> They are not directly affected, but without US cartridges less 
> business for them, which could have the risk they go out of 
> business... And finally, this community may diminish and new 
> developments can get sparse...
> 
> Anyone some more insights?
> 
> Joost

US consumers think it is better organised in the EU. The 
only thing I know about EU ruling is that the environmental 
aspect of cartridges has been heavily discussed. They should 
be refillable. But there's no mention that third parties 
should be able to refill them. The printer manufacturers had 
their say and I only expect that there is a rule that the 
manufacturers have to make a recycling path possible or 
finance it and that can be done in many ways including 
asking extra money on the cart price to subsidise the waste 
industry. EU patent ruling is different from what the US 
patent ruling became over the last decade. Not to mention 
the abuse of DMCA  rules by Lexmark in the US. It's a 
lawyers country over there so I do not think this battle is 
over yet.

On cart patents: Epson already strangled some third party 
companies in the UK. My best guess was that Epson + the 
companies involved made a kind of PR scheme to avoid a court 
battle and make the best of a shared problem. The companies 
now sell Epson carts, possibly with a better margin than 
others selling the same carts. Epson could ventilate the 
warnings about ink incompatibility and the companies 
probably have a better margin and no need for a lawyer. So 
there's no real jurisdiction yet.

Right now I'm using a HP Z3100 and for me that printer has 
90% of what I need with the 10 % being the paper transport 
issues. It does the B&W I like. Ink price per ML is the same 
as you will pay for Canon or Epson at the same cart contents 
but I have seen in practice that it wastes maybe 40% less on 
ink compared to Epson due to a much more refined head 
conditioning scheme and being a far more reliable printer in 
general. I have used a variety of Lyson, Van Son, Staedtler, 
Mediastreet, MIS inks in Epsons and found ways to refill the 
10000CF carts and the 9000 + 9600 + 9800 carts or made CIS 
systems for them. Not just for price but because Epson 
didn't have the inks we needed. Running one Z3100 44" is way 
cheaper than having several Epsons doing the same even when 
using third party inks. It prints 24/7 or after two weeks 
rest. On gloss and matte without ink loss. If HP isn't 
increasing its ink prices terribly I'm not looking back.

Paul:

It doesn't tell much to quote HP's graphics division profit 
as an indication of ink profit, to get an idea what HP does 
in the graphic industry you should push that right button on 
their website pages, HP and FujiFilm are becoming the giants 
in the graphics industry, by growth and acquisitions. HP 
usually is sketched as the Gillette of inkjet inks but I 
actually think that Epson deserves that label more with its 
archaic black switch, the excessive cleaning charges, the 
waste you pay twice for with a chipped !! waste ink box. I 
have always written that if Epson asks a price for a chipped 
ink waste box they should take care of an environmental save 
waste disposal of it too. None of that here, it is actually 
better to take care of it yourself and reset and refill the 
box. Add to that the up to 20 % ink loss the first 9600/7600 
users were confronted with when their carts were declared 
empty by the chip. Led to an uproar. The Z3100 has a pump in 
the carts that almost drains the cart but more to my 
surprise there's more ink in the full carts than written in 
the specs, the 1 to 3 ml left in the cart isn't paid for. 
Canon and HP introduced separate carts on the desktop models 
before Epson did so. The Epson 5000 with the Twin carts had 
M and LM in one cart and C and LC in the other. You had to 
throw half the M and half the C content away when the LM and 
LC were empty and that is the well known pattern of ink use. 
There was no technical reason to do so as the inklines 
internally crossed their way anyway. I think Epson has had a 
monopoly of fine photography printers too long for nice 
ethics. The first is no longer the case but it will be hard 
to face real competition and adapting ethics at the same 
time. Why people in this industry expect that Kodak may come 
to the rescue is beyond my imagination. Ask Wilhelm what 
Kodak has done and still does to blindfold their consumers. 
Ink price is just one aspect of printer economy, enough ways 
to create extra income as sketched above.

-- 
Met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst


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