Lexmark sues importers of after-market printer cartridges

Lexmark has filed a patent infringement complaint with the International Trade Commission in an effort to stop third party toner cartridges from being used in Lexmark printers. It's deja vu all over again.
Lexmark International, Inc. has filed a patent infringement complaint with the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) against 24 companies engaged in the manufacture, importation and sale of replacement cartridges for various Lexmark laser printers and multifunction devices.

The complaint alleges that these replacement cartridges infringe on at least 15 U.S. patents owned by Lexmark. Lexmark is requesting that the ITC issue a general exclusion order banning the importation and sale of patent infringing laser cartridges by any entity.

In addition to the ITC complaint, Lexmark has also filed a related patent infringement complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio against the same defendants. The District Court complaint contains allegations similar to those in the ITC complaint and seeks injunctive relief, monetary damages and attorneys' fees.

Lexmark made similar headlines back in 2003 when the printer manufacturer tried to sue Static Control Components, Inc.. which had copied a Lexmark software routine embedded in a chip on each toner cartridge, designed to authenticate it and disable the printer if an after-market cartridge was used (throwing a catch-all code "Error: 32 Unsupported Toner Cartridge" in the process).

Static's cartridges were said to circumvent this "secret code" and allow cheaper, third party cartridges to operate in Lexmark's first-party printers.

In that case, a federal district judge initially ruled in favor of Lexmark, but the decision was reversed on appeal.