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''Lexmark International, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc.'', is an American legal case involving the computer printer company Lexmark, which had designed an authentication system using a microcontroller so that only authorized toner cartridges could be used. The resulting litigation (described by Justice Scalia in 2014 as "sprawling",〔Supreme Court ruling, at fn. 2〕 and by others as having the potential to go on as long as ''Jarndyce v. Jarndyce'') has resulted in significant decisions affecting United States intellectual property and trademark law. In separate rulings in 2004 and 2012, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that: : * circumvention of Lexmark's ink cartridge authentication does not violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and : * Static Control Components had standing basis under the Lanham Act to sue Lexmark for false advertising in relation to its promotion of the program, which was unanimously affirmed in 2014 by the Supreme Court of the United States.〔''Lexmark International, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc.'', (March 25, 2014).〕 The Supreme Court's 2014 ruling also affects statutory interpretation in the area of standing in pursuing lawsuits on statutory grounds in a wide variety of areas in federal court. ==Background== Lexmark is a large manufacturer of laser and inkjet printers,〔Circuit Court ruling, Page 2.〕 and Static Control Components (SCC) is a company that makes "a wide range of technology products, including microchips that it sells to third-party companies for use in remanufactured toner cartridges." 〔 In an effort to control and reduce the refilling and redistribution of toner cartridges, Lexmark began distributing two distinct varieties of its toner cartridges. Under its Prebate Program (now known as the Lexmark Return Program), through a shrinkwrap license, Lexmark sold certain printer cartridges at a discount (as much as $50 less)〔Dictrict Court ruling, Page 3.〕 to customers who agreed to "use the cartridge only once and return it only to Lexmark for remanufacturing or recycling". Lexmark's "Non-Prebate" cartridges could be refilled by the user without restrictions and were sold without any discount. Lexmark touted the Prebate Program as a benefit to the environment and to their customers, since it would allow customers to get cheaper cartridges, and the benefit to Lexmark was that it could keep empty cartridges out of the hands of competing rechargers. Many users purchased such cartridges under the stated conditions. To enforce this agreement, Lexmark cartridges included a computer chip that included a 55-byte computer program (the "Toner Loading Program") which communicated with a "Printer Engine Program" built into the printer. The program calculated the amount of toner used during printing: when the calculations indicated that the original supply of Lexmark toner should be exhausted, the printer would stop functioning, even if the cartridge had been refilled.〔Sixth Circuit opinion, page 3.〕 In addition, if the chip did not perform an encrypted authentication sequence, or if the Toner Loading Program on the chip did not have a checksum matching exactly a value stored elsewhere on the chip, the printer would not use the cartridge.〔Sixth Circuit opinion, page 4.〕 In 2002, SCC developed its own computer chip that would duplicate the 'handshake' used by the Lexmark chip, and that also included a verbatim copy of the Toner Loading Program, which SCC claimed was necessary to allow the printer to function. A Prebate cartridge could successfully be refilled if Lexmark's chip on the cartridge was replaced with the SCC chip.〔 SCC began selling its "Smartek" chips to toner cartridge rechargers. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Lexmark International, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc.」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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