The Supreme Court of the Netherlands has rejected the appeals by Stichting 123inkt customers and HP.
In the final twist and turn of the dispute between Stichting 123inkt private label customers (Stichting 123inkt) and HP Netherlands BV and HP Inc (HP), the Supreme Court of the Netherlands rejected the appeal by Stichting 123inkt and the cross appeal by HP, bringing the long running dispute to an end.
The case revolved around HPs worldwide firmware update in September 2016 that saw many non-OEM cartridges blocked from working in HP printers.
The firmware update resulted in the Digital Revolution BV website, 123inkt.nl, receiving a large volume of complaints about the 123 house brand that was no longer functioning in various HP printers. Users received an error message: “Problem with cartridge. One or more cartridges appear to be damaged. Remove the cartridges and replace them with new cartridges”. The company said that there was nothing at all wrong with the 123inkt.nl private label cartridges.
In September 2016 the 123inkt private label customers foundation was established to prevent similar problems in the future and committed to compensating any damage caused by the actions of HP for its participants.
The Amsterdam Court of Appeal ruled that HP acted unlawfully due to incorrect and inadequate information about the cause and solution of a blockade [firmware update] of private label cartridges implemented by HP worldwide in September 2016. The Amsterdam Court of Appeal ruled that HP is liable for the damage suffered by participants of Stichting 123inkt private label customers.
Following the judgement, 123inkt.nl considered further legal steps to obtain a ban on the (temporary) blocking of non-original cartridges by HP, so that HP cannot create a monopoly in this way.
On the 24th December 2021, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands rejected appeal by Stichting 123inkt to rule that a printer manufacturer is acting illegally by installing software with dynamic security in printers that rejects ink cartridges from other vendors or causes an error message.
