Epson believes that the three legal actions described in this article ["Epson Faces Consumer Suits"], filed by a single law firm, are without merit and will be dismissed or otherwise resolved in Epson's favor. They are based on false allegations made earlier this year by a Dutch consumer group that, upon further investigation, were publicly retracted. The Dutch organization issued an apology to Epson and went on to state that Epson cartridges in fact confer a technological benefit in order to maintain the life of the printer.
Epson's position that these lawsuits are frivolous is echoed by many of the industry's leading authorities on printer technology, including CAP Ventures and Lyra Research. A sampling of their opinions follows:
- "The U.S. lawsuits copying the erroneous Dutch allegations against Epson are frivolous," said Jim Forrest, imaging expert with Newton, Massachusetts-based Lyra Research. "An Epson ink jet cartridge that runs completely dry could damage the hardware's printing mechanism. Yes, there may be some ink left over, but that is by design, for the protection and longevity of the printer. And, since its cartridges are priced by page yields, not volume, consumers are in fact getting all that they paid for."
- "Recent trade press coverage on some of these lawsuits appears to be manufactured and have little legitimacy," said John Shane, director, Communication Supplies Consulting Service, CAP Ventures, a leading strategic consulting firm for providers and users of business and visual communication technologies and services. "This type of misleading industry discourse does little to accurately educate the marketplace."
It is important to understand that Epson's ink cartridges are designed to include a small safety reserve of ink. This safety reserve serves an important engineering function to ensure consistent image quality and prevent damage to the permanent printhead that could be caused by drawing in air bubbles when there is no ink remaining in the cartridge. The printer will automatically stop working when there is no more safely usable ink in the cartridge. Users benefit from all of the ink they have paid for, since Epson promotes and prices the cartridges based on the usable volume of ink reflected in the rated yield, not on the total volume of ink.
The chip included in Epson's cartridges records the amount of ink that has been used from a cartridge, which not only ensures that the printheads are not damaged by ink cartridges running dry, but also enables users to swap out cartridges as needed to handle particular print jobs. Epson is concerned that some of the people making these accusations are doing a disservice to consumers by recommending that they override the ink-replacement signal, which will cause poor-quality prints and can damage the permanent printhead.
--Epson America
