p2pnet.net News:- Printer manufacturer Lexmark can’t use the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to stop competitors from creating and selling cartridges that interoperate with its printers.

A Sixth Circuit Court decision has lifted an injunction imposed by a lower court on the sale of Static Control Components (SCC) chips that allow any printer cartridge to work with Lexmark printers.

"The case, Lexmark v. Static Control Components, demonstrates one of the absurdities of the anti-circumvention clause of the DMCA," says the says the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation), which had filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case.

"Congress intended the DMCA to thwart mass copyright infringement on the Internet, but some companies have been invoking the law to gain control over after-market competition."

Lexmark programmed its printers to require a digital "handshake" with cartridges, so that only authorized (read Lexmark) cartridges could be used, says the EFF.

When SCC started selling chips that allowed other companies to refill used cartridges and make them interoperable with Lexmark printers, Lexmark claimed they were engaging in unlawful reverse engineering and sued under the DMCA.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 27th, 2004 at 6:19 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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