“Epson’s conduct was intentional and designed to suppress competition, and resulted in forcing Epson customers to pay for Epson’s more expensive ink,” the Epson printer software class action states. To be sure, the company could have emphasized that Epson printers were of higher quality.Īlso, Epson could have reportedly won over customers by providing superior customer experiences rather than secretively causing functioning printers to stop working. The plaintiffs also say that Epson could have created reasons for Epson customers to use ink cartridges for Epson. The printer owners claim that Epson’s conduct caused harm to customers by forcing them to purchase more expensive ink cartridges and rendering their less expensive cartridges as useless as a means to maintain market share and profits. In addition, the plaintiffs maintain that the third-party ink cartridges were not defective or incompatible, as they would have worked in Epson printers until the company intentionally altered the software that controlled the printers. They claim that Epson exceeded their authority when it disabled their printers. The plaintiffs say that they did not authorize Epson to disable their printers to prevent them from using cheaper third-party alternatives to Epson’s own ink cartridges. “Epson neglected to inform Plaintiffs and others like them that accepting Updates would potentially disable their machine and, at the very least, force them into purchasing Epson ink cartridges,” the Epson printer software class action lawsuit goes on to state. The customers state that this error message is in direct contradiction to Epson’s representations to the plaintiffs and Class Members that the Epson printer updates were meant to fix or improve printer functionality. Instead, consumers think that the updates are supposed to provide fixes and other improvements.Īfter the updates are installed on the customers’ Epson printers to detect if they are using a third-party ink cartridge, the printers display a message that the printer is having a “Maintenance Error” that it does not recognize the ink cartridge when the third-party ink cartridge is installed. The plaintiffs claim that the software updates that are pushed out to customers do not alert printer owners that they will render their printer inoperable if they attempt to use third-party ink cartridges. “Epson relies on firmware updates it pushes out to unsuspecting customers to block the use of third-party ink cartridges-thus allowing Epson to keep that substantial profit stream captive,” the Epson printer software class action lawsuit says.

However, the company claims that the third-party ink cartridges can cut into its bottom line and may result in losing market share. The Epson printer software class action lawsuit goes on to say that the 2018 Epson Annual Report acknowledges that third-party ink cartridges can be used in Epson printers.

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