Hacker News Reader

Comment by DannyBee | Hacker News Reader

In practice it means people will still be able to stop you from doing things with stuff you own. Just not using patent rights. Lexmark's real problem here is that its enforceable contracts are usually with the resellers, and so enforcing against a third party purchaser is trickier, so it tried to use patent law instead. (It has plenty of contracts, including on the wrapping of the printer cartridges, I'm just sticking with the ones that are easy to enforce)

View on HN

They'll always be looking for new ways, but fortunately for the moment SCOTUS has been productive about shooting them down as they come up. Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley prevented bizarre applications of copyright exhaustion, and now they've done the same to patent law. This is an encouraging sign that, whatever its other faults, SCOTUS seems to take the first-sale doctrine pretty seriously.

All they really need to do is make cartridges rentals instead of sales, no?

Perhaps also by a clever rebate scheme.

Product price is $180. Rebate is $40. Applying for and getting the rebate necessitates signing of a 'contract' which prohibits certain action. [1]

[1] May not hold up in advanced legal cases but enough of a leg to stand on to get the ball rolling.

FTD:

"The other is to buy a cartridge at roughly 20-percent off through Lexmark’s “Return Program.” A customer who buys through the Return Program still owns the cartridge but, in exchange for the lower price, signs a contract agreeing to use it only once and to refrain from transferring the empty cartridge to anyone but Lexmark."

Note that because the contract is with the purchaser, and not with the refiller/reseller, Lexmark can only use the original purchaser. Which is why they turned to patent law in order to try to and stop the refiller/reseller.

Same model as before where you are contractually required to return it, except you get a rebate after the cartridge is returned within a certain timeframe.

There's no particular reason to make it a rental. They can still put whatever contractual restraints they want on a sale, they just have to enforce those under contract law, not via patent law.

The entire reasoning for bringing a patent lawsuit is that it allows them to sue the refillers/resellers, instead of having to sue millions of individual customers who might have violated a shrink-wrap contract with Lexmark. Going into a cartridge rental business, besides adding a ton of overhead, wouldn't really change that -- they'd still need to go after the renters one at a time.

With a rental wouldn't purchasers of used cartridges essentially be knowingly buying stolen property? (Which seems very straightforward in terms its legal ramifications compared to other options.)

IANAL, but I think you'd have to prove that, ie identify the chain of custody for the device and prove that the lease was broken.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com