Tuesday, March 04, 2003

lexmark to face antitrust charges?

Recently, in a Kentucky District Court, a case was brought by printer manufacturer Lexmark under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to prevent a printer cartridge manufacturer from selling replacement cartridges for Lexmark printers. The case brought a considerable amount of concern over how the law was being used.

Lexmark was successful in getting an injunction last week, under the DMCA. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has copies of documents filed in the case here.

Static Control Online, the cartridge manufacturer who lost the injunction, is trying to defend themselves in the aftermath of this decision in a number of ways. The first was to file a comment with the Copyright Office asking them to find that the DMCA does not apply to printer cartridges or to create an exemption for "the use of chips that allow the interoperability of a toner cartridge with a printer." They are asking others to send in comments with their opinions on the subject to the Copyright Office.

The second was to file an antitrust suit against Lexmark. Their press release is here.

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