http://www.techradar.com/news/computing ... es-1173330

Not good for the consumer... There was a Private Eye cartoon recently with a burglar in a well-to-do house asking where the printer ink was kept

Cue an increase in ink cartridge prices in the near future. Lets see how far DCI has held back Epson's prices.

Ink seems to run out incredibly quickly for the price you pay. If you can live with the quality, laser is so much cheaper in the long run.

I picked up a couple of HP Laserjets from an office clearance for £40, about 12 years ago. Sold as is - one was dead but both had almost full toner carts. I got rid of the good one just before we moved to the island because a new cart was going to cost nearly £70. I thought £40 for eight years printing was pretty decent.

Now we have a wireless Epson all-in-one, and I gripe every time the kids print out rubbish on it.

I have a Epson inkjet but the cost of running means that I stick to the HP laserjet. It might cost me £70 for a cartridge but that has lasted years.

Shame. I used to buy Jet Tec's Epson compatible cartridges as Epson's own ones are obscenely highly priced.

They are but while the inks are better for photo reproduction I do not need expensive photo ink for printing a web page. If they actually worked with the compatible ink market they could find that they still sell inks for high end work, and customers could still get cheap ink for when they do not need expensive ink. A big part of the problem is that dump the printers as a loss leader and try and tie you in with the inks.

Surely there should be an anti-competitive law kicking in here to stop Epson being the only one able to produce inks for their printers. It's a bit like having to buy only OEM parts for cars when third party parts should be available.

That is why they chip the cartridges so that Epson can call it an intellectual property issue.

The prices should now come down, they don't have to waste money suing DCI and they will be selling more cartridges, so economies of scale come into play... Oh, wait, we are talking corporate greed here. I think you might well be correct.

I've only ever bought original inks up until this year, then I couldn't get an original replacement, so I bought a Pelikan cartridge, but it didn't fit in my printer, even though it was sold as being compatible with my printer.

I decided that it was time to replace my 12 year old printer and bought an Epson Workforce. I used to get through a cartridge every couple of years, but with 2 girls at college and my fiancé doing a sandwich course, we are getting through a couple of cartridges a year! At east the Epson takes an XXL black cartridge.

Compared to the old HP cartridges, the Epson ones are very good value for money.


Yes and no. You can't get OEM parts for cars, as long as the parts are still under patent, or the manufacturer sells the OEMs a licence to reproduce the parts. That is what the patent system is there for. It allows a manufacturer to exclusively sell their products for a set period of time, to regain the money they invested in R&D, before it is opened up to everybody. They can decide to sell licences as well.

It is only when the patents are part of a standard that the manufacturer has to provide a licence on reasonable terms. As the cartridges are unique to each printer, it doesn't fall under these FRAND rules.

Looking at another area, why do you think that Wilkinson and Gillette come up with new razor blade designs every few years? Because their patents are about to run out and they need something new, which is protected, before the market is flooded with third party blades based on their previous design.

Completely understand companies making slight modifications to their products to continue patents. This is something that happens in the Drug Industry and IIRC there was a case about a drug manufacturer and an anti-cancer drug that they tried to continue the patent on by making a tiny change.

i have a Epson SX435W all in one which i get compatible cartridges from Amazon (4 black and 2 of each colour) for £20 with 4 times the ink capicity

likely i have two full sets, i will not pay epson prices for half filled cartridges
i see a colour laser printer all in one coming into view in a couple of years time ...

I am considering a colour laser at some point. Inkjets are really only good for photo prints, and for that you are better off going for genuine inks as they last better.