Japanese court OKs recycled ink cartridges

[Mulboyne]

[Socratesabroad]

I'm not exactly sure Canon's going to lose tons of revenue.

I own a Canon Multipass and, because of the low price and a desire to see if they work, stocked up on the Recycle Assist ink cartidges at Yodobashi Camera right before moving to China. Well, I tried them out - I was left with fading, streaking, little/no output of ink - the quality isn't nearly as good as the Canon ones.

The problem could be the ink or the precision of Canon's design. Dimensions are on the order of millimeters, so ink that's a tad off can fark the printout, printer, etc. I'm not sure if it's changed, but as I recall Canon stipulated that using anything other than Canon-brand ink would void the warantee. So customers could use the refilled cartridges - at their own peril.

In the end, Recycle Assist failed miserably if their aim was any sort of conservation because I ended up throwing their unused cartridges straight into the trash.

[Taro Toporific]

INK JET? JUST SAY NO

Even though I documented all of the first bubble jet printers Canon made, I never even took home the "free" printers they gave me.
I held onto my dot-matrix printer to 1997 and then got the real thing, a laser printer. The consumables costs for dot-matrix were nil and my laser printers run forever for home use on the original cartridge (5,000+ pages and still going).

Nowadays even color laser is cheap. Why even bother with expensive-to-tears ink jet catridges that always run out at the wrong time?
Do you need to print out nude photos of Rob Pongi and you're too embarassed to go to the Fiji photo store that makes digital camera prints for less than than damn jet ink cost with 100x better quality?

[Mulboyne]

About turn...

Kyodo via Yahoo: Court bans importer from selling recycled ink cartridges

The Intellectual Property High Court banned an importer from selling recycled ink cartridges for ink-jet printers on Tuesday in line with a demand by Canon Inc., the patent holder of the type of cartridges. The high court reversed a December 2004 Tokyo District Court ruling that rejected Canon's demand to bar the sale of the recycled product imported from China by Tokyo-based distributor Recycle Assist Co. Canon says the product, in which ink is refilled in emptied cartridges, violates its patent right.

[Mulboyne]

"Final answer":

Yomiuri: Top court says recycled Canon ink cartridges violate patent

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a high court ruling stating that the sale of recycled ink cartridges violates the patent right of Canon Inc., which holds the patent of the original product. The top court ruled Canon was eligible to demand the sale of recycled cartridges imported by office supplies distributor Recycle Assist Co. be barred, saying the recycled product contained key elements of the patented invention. Presiding Judge Kazuko Yokoo said, "If a product processed from a patented product can be regarded as a new patented product, the processed one is a violation of the patent right of the original one." The decision marks the Supreme Court's first ruling on patent infringement regarding a recycled product of a patented item. The decision is expected to impact the recycling industry.

Canon in 2002 obtained a patent on technology to prevent ink leakage from cartridges. Recycle Assist imported Canon cartridges that have been emptied and refilled, and the company sold the recycled product without Canon's consent. According to the ruling, a recycled product violates the patent right of the original product if the recycled product can be recognized as a "new production" of the patented product. A recycled product is recognized as a "new production" of the patented product based on the characteristics of the recycled product and how the original product is processed, among other points. On the recycled product in question, the Supreme Court ruled that the product was a new production of a patented product. The Tokyo District Court in 2004 dismissed Canon's demand, to which the patent holder appealed. The Intellectual Property High Court in January last year reversed the lower court ruling and said the recycled product violated Canon's patent right. Recycled Assist appealed to the Supreme Court. Thursday's ruling is final. A representative of Recycle Assist said, "We're disappointed with the ruling, but we've already altered the recycling process, so the decision will not affect our future recycled products."

[American Oyaji]

Ink is a dying industry.