In fairness to the other side of this situation, Epson did have some
problems with very inaccurate ink reading, often leaving way too much
ink behind on certain models, well beyond what was necessary from a
mechanical or functional standpoint.
Also, their yield numbers for pages at 5% were based upon continual use
of the printer until the cartridge ran out and only cleanings that would
occur based upon the internal timers during those runs. Other than in a
production setting, that never occurs in real life. People constantly
turn their printers on and off, and they get head clogs that require ink
to be wasted. In fact, most Epson users who alter their printers so the
ink goes into a clear waste ink bottle outside of the printer are
shocked by how much ink is used during start up, cleaning and purging
cycles. Other printer brands have waste ink as well, although I
understand HP has reduced this by cycling their inks through the heads
and feeding the ink back with some models.
As much as there is abuse, absolutely, by legal entities taking
advantage of the cost of litigation to corner corporations and
manufacturers to settle awards that may not be fully justified, the
printer industry is not blameless is some of the cases against them, by
any means.
As one example, the use of "starter cartridges", which do not indicate
they have lesser yields, or simply state they should be replaced with
the more full versions when empty, and often no information on how those
starter cartridges compare with full ones (this is mainly done in the
laser printer and photocopier market these days).
Or manufacturers offering so-called "economy cartridges" after some
regulations required the printers to come with cartridges which are
available as retail stores SKUs, which were actually starter cartridges,
and were rarely purchased due to their poor yield relative to cost.
I could list many more "design features" which were really put in place
to make refilling difficult or to force "patent violations".
Personally, my attitude abut how class action lawsuits are carried out,
and their targets is "a pox on both their houses"...
Art
If you are interested in issues surrounding e-waste,
I invite you to enter the discussion at my blog:
http://e-trashtalk.spaces.live.com/
Bob Headrick wrote:
> "NotMe" <> wrote in message
> news:gtsvue$ntq$:
>
>> The logical and ethical solution is for Epson and other manufactures to
>> quote USABLE ink quantity in the specifications.
>
> Perhaps logical and ethical, but it did not help Epson stave off
> extortion. Epson and other manufacturers *did* quote deliverable ink,
> they were sued over what was left in the ink delivery system as a buffer
> to protect the printheads. Facts do not seem to matter much for
> populist lawsuits. I recall a decade or so ago when Toshiba settled a
> suit related to possibly faulty floppy controller chips. Although there
> was never even an allegation that any consumer anywhere ever had data
> corruption or suffered any damage, Toshiba paid out hundreds of
> millions of $$$'s in settlements. The lawyers then used that settlement
> to go after other PC manufacturers using the same chipset.
>
> - Bob Headrick, MS MVP Printing/Imaging
>
>
>
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