Now HP goes after third party ink infringers

[Ian]

Epson has been vigorously protecting its ink-jet technology interests recently and now it's the turn of HP.

HP has issued a press release confirming that it has filed a complaint against a Korean ink-jet ink manufacturer, InkTec, because it believes InkTec has violated HP patents in the formulation of its replacement inks.

What I find interesting about the HP move is that it would appear that InkTec is actually making its inks using some technology that HP believes it originally developed. This would kind of imply that InkTec is far from a 'coloured water' back-street ink mixing-up operation.

Epson on the other hand, I believe, was protecting the design of its cartridges and the pressure venting system these cartridges benefit from.

Looks like third party ink manufacturers are getting increasingly bold!

Ian

[Pops]

Re: Now HP goes after third party ink infringers

Surely the consumer must take some of the blame.
Even though these compatable inks perform below the standard of originals and, the question mark over quantity per cartridge alway exists, there still appears to be a huge market for them.
I have an Epson RX520 which requires 4 cartridges and confess to having tried a compatable brand. Even to an untrained eye the results were inferior and their life appeared to be greatly reduced.

Anyone else used compatable ink. How did it perform.

[lumix]

Re: Now HP goes after third party ink infringers

Surely the consumer must take some of the blame.
Even though these compatable inks perform below the standard of originals and, the question mark over quantity per cartridge alway exists, there still appears to be a huge market for them.
I have an Epson RX520 which requires 4 cartridges and confess to having tried a compatable brand. Even to an untrained eye the results were inferior and their life appeared to be greatly reduced.

Anyone else used compatable ink. How did it perform.

90% of the time for me. Yes it is below par but only for printing photographs. If you use your printer for run of the mill printing as I do then it makes sense to use cheap ink. If I want quality then I put the Epson originals in do a head clean and all is fine. Do you realize that ounce for ounce printer ink is one of the dearest liquids you can buy. More expensive than petrol, beer, and even perfume. It's well know that most printer manufactures sell their printers cheap so as to get you started on the life long expensive ink replacement train.

[Pops]

Re: Now HP goes after third party ink infringers

90% of the time for me. Yes it is below par but only for printing photographs. If you use your printer for run of the mill printing as I do then it makes sense to use cheap ink. If I want quality then I put the Epson originals in do a head clean and all is fine. Do you realize that ounce for ounce printer ink is one of the dearest liquids you can buy. More expensive than petrol, beer, and even perfume. It's well know that most printer manufactures sell their printers cheap so as to get you started on the life long expensive ink replacement train.

Yes and I think 'Lexmark' are the biggest culprits for that. You can actually buy a Lexmark printer for less than replacing both ink cartridges.

[lumix]

Re: Now HP goes after third party ink infringers

Yes and I think 'Lexmark' are the biggest culprits for that. You can actually buy a Lexmark printer for less than replacing both ink cartridges.

Dell at one time were giving printers away free. They were Lexmark with a dell badge. Supplied with enough ink to print 10 pages, then charged way over the top for replacement Ink. Personally I think competition is the only way prices will drop. Take that away and we are over the barrel so to speak.

[JSR]

Re: Now HP goes after third party ink infringers

Anyone else used compatable ink. How did it perform.

A friend of mine bought a compatible black cartridge for her Epson 895 (from the high street, so it wasn't particularly cheap). She'd always used Epson OEM before this, I can't recall why she bought the compatible - probably thinking they can't be as bad as she'd read, or being convinced by the counter staff that it's the "same as Epson".

Anyway, she couldn't get the black to print. No amount of head-cleaning would get ink out of it. I went to see if I could sort it out but there must have been something seriously wrong with it because nothing would print. Having done plenty of nozzle checks and head cleans herself, I feared that the printhead could have been damaged.

Having used Epson printers for a while, I knew the 895 used the same black ink as my 1290. The only spare cartridge I had on the shelf was a "light" cartridge (half-filled). It was about 4 years old, at least two years past its "use by date" but at this point it didn't really matter.

I put in the Epson cartridge, did a quick nozzle check and head clean, and the 895 fired up printing beautifully again.

She vowed never to be tempted by compatibles again.

Story ends.

[mudbo]

Re: Now HP goes after third party ink infringers

[QUOTE=lumix;3447]90% of the time for me. Yes it is below par but only for printing photographs. If you use your printer for run of the mill printing as I do then it makes sense to use cheap ink.

I gotta go along with that one. The same marketing concept has been used for years by razor blade manufacturers. Give away the razor for little or nothing, then sell expensive blade cartridges. Consumers need some recourse. I've noticed ink refill kiosks in shopping centers lately and they seem to do well. Good for them.

Michael

[JSR]

Re: Now HP goes after third party ink infringers

90% of the time for me. Yes it is below par but only for printing photographs. If you use your printer for run of the mill printing as I do then it makes sense to use cheap ink.

I gotta go along with that one. The same marketing concept has been used for years by razor blade manufacturers. Give away the razor for little or nothing, then sell expensive blade cartridges. Consumers need some recourse. I've noticed ink refill kiosks in shopping centers lately and they seem to do well. Good for them.

Michael

[Patrick]

Re: Now HP goes after third party ink infringers

A friend of mine bought a compatible black cartridge for her Epson 895 (from the high street, so it wasn't particularly cheap). She'd always used Epson OEM before this, I can't recall why she bought the compatible - probably thinking they can't be as bad as she'd read, or being convinced by the counter staff that it's the "same as Epson".

Anyway, she couldn't get the black to print. No amount of head-cleaning would get ink out of it. I went to see if I could sort it out but there must have been something seriously wrong with it because nothing would print. Having done plenty of nozzle checks and head cleans herself, I feared that the printhead could have been damaged.

Having used Epson printers for a while, I knew the 895 used the same black ink as my 1290. The only spare cartridge I had on the shelf was a "light" cartridge (half-filled). It was about 4 years old, at least two years past its "use by date" but at this point it didn't really matter.

I put in the Epson cartridge, did a quick nozzle check and head clean, and the 895 fired up printing beautifully again.

She vowed never to be tempted by compatibles again.

Story ends.

[Ian]

Re: Now HP goes after third party ink infringers

I don't think this is really fair on the printer industry. I'm going to visit HP's print head and cartridge manufacturing facility in Dublin on Monday. I have been there once before and to Canon and Lexmark plants in Scotland (now no longer there because they became uneconomical) and Epson's cartridge plant in Milton Keynes.

These facilities are (were) extremely sophisticated and, by definition, expensive to set up and operate. You simply can't compare a millilitre of ink with other commonly sold liquids.

The cost of the ink reflects not only the manufacturing cost of the ink, but the whole printer, cartridge and ink package. As the debate recognises, it's usual for a printer to be sold at near to 'cost' or even below cost. This cost is then recouped through the sale of ink refills throughout the life of the printer.

Don't blame the printer manufacturers for this situation - it's the market that dictates it. It's much harder to sell a printer for $500 and ink cartridges at $5 a go than $99 for the printer and $30 for the cartridges.

This ends up being bad news for high consumers of ink, so I'm very sympathetic with Patrick's situation. Alas, people like Patrick are in the minority and so the industry has less incentive to serve people like him.

What the industry needs to do is offer a discount incentive for higher consumers of inks, but that would probably be deemed anti-competitive and so illegal.

Having seen first hand how printer manufacturers formulate and make their inks, how they engineering of the print heads to marry with the physics and chemistry of the inks and the cartridge designs, I'm in awe of what they do.

And then I see so many people saving a dollar/pound or two on a third party cartridge and earn themselves bad colours that fade in no time and sometimes damaging the printer, and then they have the cheek to get the printer manufacturer to fix it under warranty.

Naturally, specialist high capacity ink systems aimed at professionals don't fall into this category of complaint - though not everyone has had such a happy experience as Patrick, it has to be said.

In the end, if anyone thinks the printer manufacturers are trying to rip us all off, they are deluded. It's an incredibly competitive market that is badly distorted by us, the consumers.

Ian

[lumix]

Re: Now HP goes after third party ink infringers

My printer manufacturer Epson offer Durabrite ink for use with Durabrite Paper. Both these are quite expensive. For some time I only ever used the Durabrite settings in the driver software when I wanted top quality prints on Durabrite paper. Then by mistake I selected this setting when I was using cheap ink and paper from a generic source. The printed results were as good as I would have expected from using genuine Epson paper/ink. I now believe that Epson have set the quality below its best so as to make you think Durabrite paper is something special when in fact it is the software setting. I now use the Durarite setting by default on all paper/ink combinations and get very pleasing results.

[Ian]

Re: Now HP goes after third party ink infringers

My printer manufacturer Epson offer Durabrite ink for use with Durabrite Paper. Both these are quite expensive. For some time I only ever used the Durabrite settings in the driver software when I wanted top quality prints on Durabrite paper. Then by mistake I selected this setting when I was using cheap ink and paper from a generic source. The printed results were as good as I would have expected from using genuine Epson paper/ink. I now believe that Epson have set the quality below its best so as to make you think Durabrite paper is something special when in fact it is the software setting. I now use the Durarite setting by default on all paper/ink combinations and get very pleasing results.

Epson Durabrite ink is a pigmented ink that was primarily developed for optimal use on plain paper. It's water resistant and very fade-resistant, too. It's not really aimed at photo printing, though Epson has refined the Durabrite offering over the years so that it produces passable photos on photo quality paper.

Wilhelm Imaging tested third party Durabrite replacement inks and discovered that they were all dye-based inks, so were not water resistant and some rated as fade resistant for just a few months compared to Durabrite at around a hundred years.

Dye-based inks are also much less good than pigmented inks when printing on plain paper - there is more ink spreading along the paper fibres resulting in less saturated colours and more feathering of detail.

Ian

[Patrick]

Re: Now HP goes after third party ink infringers

I don't think this is really fair on the printer industry. I'm going to visit HP's print head and cartridge manufacturing facility in Dublin on Monday. I have been there once before and to Canon and Lexmark plants in Scotland (now no longer there because they became uneconomical) and Epson's cartridge plant in Milton Keynes.

These facilities are (were) extremely sophisticated and, by definition, expensive to set up and operate. You simply can't compare a millilitre of ink with other commonly sold liquids.

The cost of the ink reflects not only the manufacturing cost of the ink, but the whole printer, cartridge and ink package. As the debate recognises, it's usual for a printer to be sold at near to 'cost' or even below cost. This cost is then recouped through the sale of ink refills throughout the life of the printer.

Don't blame the printer manufacturers for this situation - it's the market that dictates it. It's much harder to sell a printer for $500 and ink cartridges at $5 a go than $99 for the printer and $30 for the cartridges.

This ends up being bad news for high consumers of ink, so I'm very sympathetic with Patrick's situation. Alas, people like Patrick are in the minority and so the industry has less incentive to serve people like him.

What the industry needs to do is offer a discount incentive for higher consumers of inks, but that would probably be deemed anti-competitive and so illegal.

Having seen first hand how printer manufacturers formulate and make their inks, how they engineering of the print heads to marry with the physics and chemistry of the inks and the cartridge designs, I'm in awe of what they do.

And then I see so many people saving a dollar/pound or two on a third party cartridge and earn themselves bad colours that fade in no time and sometimes damaging the printer, and then they have the cheek to get the printer manufacturer to fix it under warranty.

Naturally, specialist high capacity ink systems aimed at professionals don't fall into this category of complaint - though not everyone has had such a happy experience as Patrick, it has to be said.

In the end, if anyone thinks the printer manufacturers are trying to rip us all off, they are deluded. It's an incredibly competitive market that is badly distorted by us, the consumers.

Ian

without

[JSR]

Re: Now HP goes after third party ink infringers

It could be said that there is already a discount scheme for heavy users. Spend more money upfront, get an Epson 4800, and use 220ml carts to produce prints much more cheaply than from the cheaper printers. That's rewarding heavy use. It's also the old adage about getting what you pay for. Pay the costs up front, print for cheaper; don't pay the costs up front, print more expensive.

The cheaper printers aren't designed for heavy use. There are countless posts over the web of people asking what to do about the waste pad. Under normal use, the waste pad would be sufficient but using cheap inks means you become a heavy user on a light-use printer.

Colour laser printers are going the same way. The cheaper ones cost a small fortune to run, the expensive ones don't. Pay upfront, or pay by toner. Like inkjets, lasers can be refilled but a lot of the current generation of cheaper colour lasers have components that are not user-replaceable. Where once you could replace the transfer belt or photo-conductor, now you can't. Use the printer for its intended purpose (light-to-medium use) and it'll serve you well, refill it and use it heavily and those non-replaceable parts will run out quicker. It stands to reason.

I have no issue with anyone using a third-party solution where that solution is not accomodated by the OEM (it's what I do with my 1290S), but that's a different issue to the market being flooded with cheap generics leading to the consumer believing that they neither have to pay for the printer or the inks. Someone has to pay something, or else what pays for progress?

[Ian]

Re: Now HP goes after third party ink infringers

And what is your point? Isn't it the purpose of a manufacturer to be profitable? How can they be profitable if they don't gauge the market's needs and control costs at the same time?

But I repeat, the ink jet printer industry is extremely competitive. If it were a gold mine, don't you think there would be more than just four primary players (Canon, Epson, Lexmark and HP). Kodak was rumoured to be entering the market but the news has gone awfully quiet on this. Look at how many laser printer manufacturers there are compared to ink-jet.

The competition is what drives research forward in an effort to get a bigger market share, if they were a monopoly market would they spend such big research dollars, I think not.
Ink is fare more expensive to buy than petrol, without

I really don't understand the logic of comparing the oil business with ink-jet printers and consumables. Fuel is a commodity that doesn't even come packaged. It's used in high volumes and although a refinery is a very expensive thing to set up and run, the very high throughput enables a low, per litre cost. There are really only two types of fuel available for our cars (ignoring LPG) - diesel and gasoline (petrol). So car manufacturers have to design and make their cars and engines to suite what is available. This is probably why we're all still driving around in vehicles powered by 19th century technology and killing the planet. Any junior business student will recognise that comparing petroleum and ink is nonsense, sorry.

Many of the horror stories regarding third party Inks are from years past rehashed over again and are usually the very cheap inks.

Patrick, that simply isn't true. Just this summer Wilhelm Imaging published a report that really shamed the third party ink market in Europe.

If anything, it's getting worse as more and more entrepeneurs cash in on a rapidly growing market - all at the expense of both the customers and the manufacturers. OK, yes there are some decent third party inks, but who is to tell who they are apart from some very specialist suppliers in the professional sector?

I'm in full agreement with you on this. Just a few years ago, photo print quality from manufacturer inks was pretty poor, inks were very expensive and hardly fade resistant too. Lexmark certainly did their reputation no good at the time, but I have to say that even they have raised their game and the quality you can get out of a Lexmark printer with their ink cartridges is now surprisingly satisfactory.

Of course the bigger pro printers do have much larger ink tanks and ink costs are cheaper per square inch printed.

If I'm asked about this, my recommendation is that for photo printing (plain paper printing is a bit different) it's not worth the risk to buy third party inks that don't have an established reputation, especially in re-filled cartridges that have integrated print heads. And that kind of locks out the vast majority of the third party market.

The third party ink industry needs to earn more credibility but that takes a huge investment, one that the printer manufacturers make.

Until (and I think it will probably never happen) consumers see sense and avoid the temptation of cheaper rubbish inks and ridiculously cheap printer hardware, the mass consumer printer market will continue to work to to the model of subsidising the cost of the printer through ink sales.

Patrick - I can't even begin to imagine you popping down to the local supermarket or an ink-jet refill shop to buy their own brand ink in order to print your family snaps, which is why I'm very puzzled at your robust defence of this very practice.

Ian