Digital BW, The Print

Paul  -
   
  Is there anything to be gained by pointing out to the decission makers that Epson does not provide the product that is needed by the b&w printing community (for the most part)?
   
  Tom Baker
  

Paul Roark <paul.roark@...> wrote:
          
>There may be another complication ... the US Government has 
>put a great deal of pressure on other countries --China and 
>India among many others -- to control unauthorized 
> reproduction of American products ...

Yes, and Dr. Susan Schwab, head of the U.S. Trade office and whose court
this ball is now in, is perhaps best known for her book on the trade offs
that take place in similar situations, and has also taught courses in U.S.
trade policy, including U.S./China trade relationships, and published
articles on U.S./Japanese trade relationships. She's no lightweight or
novice in these things. Exactly how it all ends up may involve issues we
aren't even aware of. 

However, what we can do is to make sure that the powers that be understand
the facts from our perspective, which may never have been conveyed to them
because we were not parties to these actions. One of the cases out of my
FTC office was all but won until the other side pulled off a letter-writing
campaign and produced 100 letters opposing the matter -- compared to the one
that was written in favor of it. The letters carried the day, despite all
the resources that had been poured into sophisticated fact finding, economic
consultants, etc. 

> I wonder if licensing might be the best bet.

It might be.

More generally, if this type of proceeding is similar to what I used to do,
how the order is written could be critical. For example, an order could
condition enforcement on reasonable licensing. How one decided what was
reasonable could be partially defined in the order to define where this type
of marketing might be warranted and where it is probably not. How the
orders are written is a huge part of the whole ball game and where interests
can be balanced such that most parties and consumer get most of what they
need. Again, though, if we don't make enough noise to be noticed, they
might not even know there are small companies here that are doing a whole
lot more than just making cheap knock-off copies.
.....

>How is it possible that in the UK that car manufactures have 
>an absolute monopoly for two or three years for spare parts 
>of a newly introduced car model, when all of the parts are 
>not made in the UK?

At the FTC we had a series of "crash parts" cases that dealt with that issue
also. I forget what the settlements involved. However, I know part of the
politics of it involved the insurance companies that didn't want to pay the
high prices. So I think we had the insurance companies v. the car
companies. It was one of those situations where one might want to hand both
parties large guns and ... well never mind.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com 



                         


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]