Lawsuit Alleges Foul Play in H-P Printer

Note that at present this is just an allegation. HP has apparently not yet answered the complaint, and there has been, as yet, no adjudication.

LOS ANGELES A Georgia woman has sued Hewlett-Packard, claiming the ink cartridges for their printers are secretly programmed to expire on a certain date, in some cases rendering them useless before they are even installed in a printer.

The suit filed in Santa Clara Superior Court in northern California last Thursday seeks to represent anyone in the United States who purchased an H-P inkjet printer since Feb. 2001. H-P is the world's No. 1 computer printer maker.

H-P spokesmen were not immediately available to comment.

H-P ink cartridges use a chip technology to sense when they are low on ink and advise the user to make a change. But, the suit claims, those chips also shut down the cartridges at a predetermined date regardless of whether they are empty.

"The smart chip is dually engineered to prematurely register ink depletion and to render a cartridge unusable through the use of a built-in expiration date that is not revealed to the consumer," the suit said.

The suit, which seeks class-action status, asks for restitution, damages and other compensation.

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