
Supreme Court Sides with Consumers–Affirms Your Right to Repair Stuff - leonnoel
https://www.nationaleconomicseditorial.com/2017/06/01/repair-rights-impression-lexmark/
======
CaliforniaKarl
This case was covered on HN recently, in
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14446261](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14446261)

I think this editorial is making this case out to be more than it is.

There are many ways that a company can work to restrict a person's ability to
modify a product that they have purchased. Patent infringement is one way, and
that argument's effectiveness has been reduced.

But there are other ways that a person's ability can be restricted, such as
licensing and proprietary parts. This case says nothing about that.

So please, author, don't make like I was going to be sued if I tried to
replace my iPhone's battery.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I was going to mention something similar. Someone, somewhere, is looking at
all the ways you can headline the same information to generate clicks[1].

I've seen a number of people make this particular leap though, that people
will cite this as a precedent for either reversing or defending lawsuits
against post sale use.

[1] [https://xkcd.com/1283/](https://xkcd.com/1283/)

~~~
delecti
I've also seen someone use this same SCOTUS decision to say that video game
streaming rights got protected. That's like 4 levels of wrong.

------
yladiz
Here is the ruling if anyone is interested (the opinion starts on page 6):
[https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-1189_ebfj.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-1189_ebfj.pdf)

I think this article is taking what the ruling says and bringing it a bit far.
Essentially this suit was about Lexmark suing a "remanufacturer", Impression
Products, Inc., that takes used ink cartridges and refills them, instead of
the consumer returning them to Lexmark, for parent infringement (I think in
this specific case, the remanufacturer was refilling toner cartridges).
Impression Products won this case, and the suit says that patent rights end
once the cartridge is sold to a consumer.

I can see that this could be a landmark case in the future when one of those
Right-To-Repair laws (like the one in Nebraska(?)) if the specific reason
manufacturers don't want to let consumers repair their own products is due to
patent issues, but more broadly I don't think it covers the entirety of the
"right to repair". That case might use this as a precedent, but it will still
need to be decided in a court.

~~~
jaredklewis
This case rules on patents because the case before them was about patents. But
for me, when I read the decision I got sense that the court felt the pendulum
had swung too far away from consumers, and that things need to be balanced out
with a stronger view of the first sale doctrine.

Given this change in thinking, I am optimistic future cases dealing with non-
patent issues will yield similar results.

~~~
yladiz
Maybe, but this suit rules only on patents and you can't infer beyond that.
Take, for example, this line in the case (on page 10, under pp II A):

> The single-use/no-resale restrictions in Lexmark’s contracts with customers
> may have been clear and enforceable under contract law...

IANAL, but this makes me think that the case would only be applied to patent
issues, because it doesn't rule about anything concerning contracts. That kind
of suit will have to come later.

~~~
jaredklewis
Sure I don't dispute that it only rules on patent issues. But, I think it is
often possible to get a sense of how the court will rule on future decisions
by reading their past rulings to get a sense of their thinking. And while
there is a lot to be said for each justice's individual personality, on this
issue they were unanimous.

My reading of the decision was that the court wasn't just clarifying the
bounds of patent law, with no real interest in the consumer perspective. I
felt a court that was concerned about the way consumer rights are heading.

If companies start spamming the public with grabby adhesion contracts for
everyday purchases, I think the court is going to be very concerned.

Of course, this is just my intuition and reading. We won't know for sure until
the next consumer rights case, but I am optimistic.

------
URSpider94
The ruling in this case simply says you can't sue someone for patent
infringement if they are re-selling, refurbishing or re-manufacturing your
product without their permission. Further, it says that you can't sue someone
for US patent infringement if they import your goods originally sold overseas.
That's because patent rights are "exhausted" with the first sale, like
copyright.

This ruling does not:

\- prevent a seller from forcing you to sign a contract saying you won't re-
manufacture or refill their product, and sue you if you violate that contract

\- require a seller to do anything else to help you repair your product

\- prevent Lexmark from suing cartridge refillers for patent infringement if
the materials that they are using for the refill (inks, toners) violate a
Lexmark patent

Why did Lexmark use patent in the first place? Well, the problem with using
shrink-wrap agreements is that then you have to sue your customers - yuck.
Lexmark's customers are the ones violating the agreement, the resellers don't
have any kind of contract with Lexmark so they aren't in breach. Also, you'd
have to sue thousands upon thousands of customers to chill the market -
reminds me of the Napster days when record labels were trying to sue
individual downloaders. Suing on patent law was a creative way to go after the
resellers - but it didn't work.

------
jfoutz
Man, if only they'd made the cartridge play a little tune when the chip is
disabled. Then they could do the full DMCA game. Seems like the key to modern
security is to have something copyrighted behind a terrible lock

~~~
extrapickles
TrackIR uses a shitty poem as part of its initialization routine so it will
fall under copyright so the makers can control who writes software for it.

~~~
B0073D
Do you have a source for that? (no pun intended)

~~~
extrapickles
You can find one of their DCMA notices here:
[https://www.lumendatabase.org/notices/63305#](https://www.lumendatabase.org/notices/63305#)

------
ferongr
What does "stuff" mean? And what's a "right" in this situation? Does "stuff"
include things like a Tesla Model S, and a "right" means that Tesla cannot
remotely brick your car due to modifications? Does the "right" to repair only
protect from prosecution or does it imply being given access to documentation
and spare parts?

~~~
derefr
Usually a "right" defines a grant of legal ability to act, that is illegal for
a third-party to attempt to constrain.

Examine the right to free speech:

• it is a denial of your rights if a third party _interfere_ with your
exercise of your free speech (by e.g. forcefully "silencing" you in the public
square—maybe using noise-cancelling speakers or something.)

• It is _not_ a denial of your rights if you made an agreement with the third
party that they would _aid_ you in your exercise of your free speech, and then
they choose to stop honoring this agreement. (I.e. forums are allowed to ban
people.) This is, in-and-of-itself, a consequence of the right to freedom of
association.

I would expect the same to apply to the "right to repair": Tesla is allowed to
revoke its _complicity_ in helping you drive its cars—by "bricking" them—but
you then have a right to _circumvent_ that bricking, and they would be
infringing on your rights by trying to prevent you from doing so.

They don't have to make it _easy_ ; logically, with a highly-complex software
system like a smart-car (that hasn't gone through an ecosystem-wide
standardization like PCs have), the vendor's complicity is required to make
doing _anything at all_ with the car easy, and they're not required to give
you that complicity. (Consider: even if the law required them to, they could
always just go out of business in response, like Lavabit did.)

But once you start "hacking your car", anything they do _in response_ to that
to inhibit you would be a violation of your right to repair.

------
avmich
The article has this:

> Impression v Lexmark Isn’t About Printer Ink, It’s About Property Rights

to which one can agree. The object of discussion isn't limited to these two
companies and this one product.

Then later article says:

> Also, how much weight do we assign those forms that no one ever reads?

and one would assume this could be given an even bigger weight. People accuse
Bitcoin in wasting electricity but an obvious question with laws and law
practices at least in US which commands a lot of resources is raised
relatively rarely.

------
jeffdavis
Can't lexmark just change it to a rental agreement? Use these cartriges until
they run out, and then return them. If you fail to do so, lexmark doesn't care
-- the point is that they would avoid exhausting their patent rights.

~~~
URSpider94
I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that you can't have something that
looks like a sale and call it a rental. If Lexmark wants to rent printer
cartridges, they'd have to spell out a term for the rental (can't be
indefinite), collect rents, make reasonable attempts to reclaim their property
from deadbeats, etc.

They'd also have to carry all those cartridges on their books as inventory,
and therefore conduct audits, depreciate the value, etc.

The law does not generally look kindly on "hacking" \- if it looks like a duck
and quacks like a duck, you can't call it a swan just because that would be
more convenient for you.

------
cmurf
This is probably not the good news it seems. Apple and John Deer, as examples,
are moving toward leasing/renting phones rather than outright purchasing. So
if you don't own it, you don't have such a right to repair.

------
grzm
Previous HN discussion from 2 days ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14446261](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14446261)

------
lsiebert
I expect we will only have a license to operate printers/ink cartridges at
some point in the future, rather then owning them.

~~~
matt4077
Well, this Supreme Court opinion says the exact opposite, so your expectation
probably wrong for points in the short- and medium-term future.

~~~
concede_pluto
The industry has two choices: stop trying to impose post-sale restrictions, or
start openly leasing products for a limited time instead of selling them.

------
Cheezmeister
> They found a way to refill Lexmark’s single-use printer cartridges by
> disabling the chip disabling chip.

What a time to be alive.

------
DannyBee
repair vs modifications vs reconstruction is actually a very open question,
despite what this article claims

------
shmerl
Good. DRM freaks should get lost.

------
mp3geek
Which Judge voted against it?

~~~
Terr_
Seems like a "partial" disagreement from Ginsburg, leading to a 7-1-1 split.

> Six other justices concurred with Roberts in full, and Justice Ruth Bader
> Ginsberg concurred in part, saying she agreed Lexmark patent rights ended
> when the cartridges were sold in the US. For foreign sales, she said
> Lexmark’s patent right was not exhausted. Here, “patent rights” refers to
> restrictions Lexmark placed on the cartridges. The newest justice, Neil
> Gorsuch, didn’t take part because arguments were heard last year, before he
> was confirmed and seated.

[0] [https://www.extremetech.com/electronics/250050-supreme-
court...](https://www.extremetech.com/electronics/250050-supreme-court-slaps-
lexmark-cant-lock-cartridges-stop-refillers)

