# sawgrass monopoly



## akar (Jul 1, 2011)

Does anybody know the specifics of the sawgrass patent? If somebody makes their own ink formulation then how can sawgrass stop them from selling it? Does the patent apply to desktop printers? Is that the issue? There's got to be a way to stop them because monopolies are ILLEGAL in the U.S. and they are, obviously, purposely monopolizing the market (which is very unpatriotic and not capitalist so they should just get the frick out of our country). Anybody know how they are legally monopolizing the dye sub industry?


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## subinks (Nov 21, 2011)

Good question but to stop it you need full pocket of money for law suit.


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## Riph (Jan 11, 2011)

Maybe this thread will help you:

http://www.t-shirtforums.com/dye-sublimation/t148435.html


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

akar said:


> Does anybody know the specifics of the sawgrass patent? If somebody makes their own ink formulation then how can sawgrass stop them from selling it?
> 
> *A patent protects others from using the claims in the patent. If your ink formulation does not make use of the claimed methods in the patent then you don't infringe, but it takes a court and litigation to determine what the patent really covers and if your are infringing or not if you are sued.*
> 
> ...


I marked up in your text above. As another poster has pointed there is more info in the link he posted. I have a long explanation of the patent and the last litigation Sawgrass was involved in.


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## Riderz Ready (Sep 18, 2008)

subinks said:


> Good question but to stop it you need full pocket of money for law suit.


Dead on - there can be a dozen arguments on whether their patents and licenses are valid but unless you have serious dollars to fight Sawgrass's internal legal team and deep pockets it really is nothing anyone can do for the next few years. 

Think about how much money can be made by selling dye sub ink/reselling Sawgrass ink and yet virtually no one is doing it. Example - High end dye sub ink for wide format can be had for $125 or less per liter buying in quantity. Let say you rebottled the ink into the standard 125ML bottle and resold it at $70. That is half the street price Sawgrass Cartel sells ink for and the customer would get a higher quality ink. 

There is a business model where you can sell a higher quality ink at half the price and quadruple your investment and net out $400+ on a single liter of ink. Why are there not dozens of people doing it?


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

Riderz Ready said:


> Dead on - there can be a dozen arguments on whether their patents and licenses are valid but unless you have serious dollars to fight Sawgrass's internal legal team and deep pockets it really is nothing anyone can do for the next few years.
> 
> Think about how much money can be made by selling dye sub ink/reselling Sawgrass ink and yet virtually no one is doing it. Example - High end dye sub ink for wide format can be had for $125 or less per liter buying in quantity. Let say you rebottled the ink into the standard 125ML bottle and resold it at $70. That is half the street price Sawgrass Cartel sells ink for and the customer would get a higher quality ink.
> 
> There is a business model where you can sell a higher quality ink at half the price and quadruple your investment and net out $400+ on a single liter of ink. Why are there not dozens of people doing it?


But there _are_ those that do precisely that and openly and it is because they understand the law. Not everyone cowers to Sawgrass's threats. Deep pockets not required. And as I have attempted to point out before the Sawgrass patent cannot be enforced once someone has bought licensed inks, it is contract law matter and not patent law. And contracts only apply to those parties in the contract. Kind of like an "end around" in football.


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## Riderz Ready (Sep 18, 2008)

mgparrish said:


> But there _are_ those that do precisely that and openly and it is because they understand the law. Not everyone cowers to Sawgrass's threats. Deep pockets not required. And as I have attempted to point out before the Sawgrass patent cannot be enforced once someone has bought licensed inks, it is contract law matter and not patent law. And contracts only apply to those parties in the contract. Kind of like an "end around" in football.


Like Cobra Inks?


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

Riderz Ready said:


> Like Cobra Inks?


No Cobra did not rebottle licensed inks. Read your post.


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## akar (Jul 1, 2011)

Shouldn't the U.S. attorneys be going after sawgrass over this? BTW - thanks for all the responses! This just infuriates me. I know the Microsoft antitrust case and, it seems, that sawgrass is doing the same basic thing, illegally blocking competition. I guess there just aren't any other Apple or Sun Microsystem type companies in the dye sub world out there to fight sawgrass????


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## tfalk (Apr 3, 2008)

akar said:


> Shouldn't the U.S. attorneys be going after sawgrass over this? BTW - thanks for all the responses! This just infuriates me. I know the Microsoft antitrust case and, it seems, that sawgrass is doing the same basic thing, illegally blocking competition. I guess there just aren't any other Apple or Sun Microsystem type companies in the dye sub world out there to fight sawgrass????


Somehow, I think the US Attorneys have better things to worry about than a couple of shop owners who are pissed off at Sawgrass charging more than you think you want to spend on their products. I also don't see how you can possibly compare a couple of hundred shops using their ink to millions of people using Microsoft software. Microsoft tried to block other developers from using their internal code. Sawgrass created a process that nobody else thought of and is protecting their investment. How would YOU feel if you spent years and millions of dollars developing a unique process and someone down the street started undercutting you? Somehow, I suspect you would also be crying 'FOUL'.

Maybe you could go down to the park in NY and have them add this to the OWS demands? Other than that, I don't think you have much chance of having things changed...

If you can't afford their inks, than maybe your business model isn't as good as you think?


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## royster13 (Aug 14, 2007)

Do you think Sawgrass is doing anything illegal?.....In my mind, they are just doing the most they can get away with under their patent.....The reality in the world is that here are lots of patent holders that use their patents to their advantage in the marketplace...


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

tfalk said:


> Somehow, I think the US Attorneys have better things to worry about than a couple of shop owners who are pissed off at Sawgrass charging more than you think you want to spend on their products. I also don't see how you can possibly compare a couple of hundred shops using their ink to millions of people using Microsoft software. Microsoft tried to block other developers from using their internal code. Sawgrass created a process that nobody else thought of and is protecting their investment. How would YOU feel if you spent years and millions of dollars developing a unique process and someone down the street started undercutting you? Somehow, I suspect you would also be crying 'FOUL'.
> 
> Maybe you could go down to the park in NY and have them add this to the OWS demands? Other than that, I don't think you have much chance of having things changed...
> 
> If you can't afford their inks, than maybe your business model isn't as good as you think?


Yes, I think the US Attorneys are more interested in pursuing things that get them headlines, small potatos for them.

A private attorney would have to pursue a civil action, more likely a class action for the Ricoh fiasco or something like that. Even then unless there are enough "class members" in the suit might still be small potatoes for anyone.

"Occupy Sawgrass" ... now that I like.


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## akar (Jul 1, 2011)

occupy sawgrass - that's pretty funny. I do, however, think that we should be as important as any corporation - more important since more jobs are created by small businesses. they're here to protect us, no? blocking competition is not what I would do. I favor competition because it brings about innovation. If you're business is good enough then you don't need to strong arm anybody. the customers will decide what the best product is and purchase it regardless of price. that's the how capitalism works, right? I understand now that monopolies are legal, but it still seems like shoddy business practice to block legit competition. isn't that the reason so many people here boycott sawgrass and seek some other supplier?


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## akar (Jul 1, 2011)

"In the United States we value competition in our market system. Competition is a regulating force, along with the self-interest of the consumer in the US economy. They work together to keep prices low and bring new products to the market place; they also foster innovations that help to bring down the cost of doing business... Contrary to popular belief, monopolies are not illegal in the United States. What is illegal is actions taken by monopolies to limit competition." - econoedlink


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## headfirst (Jun 29, 2011)

akar said:


> There's got to be a way to stop them because monopolies are ILLEGAL in the U.S. and they are, obviously, purposely monopolizing the market (which is very unpatriotic and not capitalist so they should just get the frick out of our country).


It's not a monopoly. A monopoly is when all of the providers in a space merge together so that they are the only game in town, protecting their position by price influence. 

This is patent protection. It's as American as apple pie. You get a patent, (i.e., you invent something first) and you have the right to produce and sell your product without worry about anyone stealing your idea for a fixed number of years.

We're in Sawgrass's "protection period" for their patent.


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

headfirst said:


> It's not a monopoly. A monopoly is when all of the providers in a space merge together so that they are the only game in town, protecting their position by price influence.
> 
> This is patent protection. It's as American as apple pie. You get a patent, (i.e., you invent something first) and you have the right to produce and sell your product without worry about anyone stealing your idea for a fixed number of years.
> 
> We're in Sawgrass's "protection period" for their patent.


I have to disagree on your definition of "monopoly", what you describe is illegal, what you are calling monopoly is actually called price fixing. Monopolies are legal.

What Is Price Fixing?

"mono" means _one,_ not many_._ What you describe would be more accurately called a "cartel".

You are correct about patents. I should point out that patents can and are worked around legally. 

The reason the govt. grants you exclusive rights to your invention is that in return for the de-facto "monopoly" you receive, the public "good" is served as when the patent protection elapses the "claimed art" is placed in the public domain for everyone to use freely and benefit from. 

But the "monopoly" the patent grants is specific only to the claims of your invention. It does not necessarily grant a business monopoly.

One reason the patent has to be well documented and reviewed by the USPTO is so that others can avoid your claims in their inventions. This means that competitors can still exist, they need to be innovative and try and solve whatever "problem" the other companies patent was addressing in a different way. In this case you would not be "stealing" the other companies product(s).

The problem in our US legal system is that we don't have "loser pays" system, like some other countries have. As such, we have so many "sham" lawsuits. 

The claims in patents can be very very complicated technically and the judges in these patent lawsuits have to rely on experts to sort things out for the court so the judge can understand the issues and make the legal decisions. This process takes a decent amount of time and a lot of money to get to the "truth".

Even if the "truth" can be found in favor of the defendent it will cost him a lot of money to defend himself, and no assurance he gets any money from the court to help cover the legal expenses.

Those that abuse their patents understand how our system works and use it to their advantage. They know the cost of the other company fighting them is so high that they often just offer a "license" to the other company as that is cheaper than fighting. I see that as "extortion" albeit a legal extortion.

Yes, Sawgrass is not going away for a while.


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## akar (Jul 1, 2011)

Yeah - I get that I was wrong about monopolies. I admit that, so I did some more research and this: "Contrary to popular belief, monopolies are not illegal in the United States. What is illegal is actions taken by monopolies to limit competition." - econoedlink is what I meant. It seems to me that sawgrass is illegally blocking competition when they use their financial might to stop businesses that have different formulations but not the financial backing to handle years of litigation. Isn't that how they're stopping the competition, by scaring them with the thought of lengthy litigation that could bankrupt them? I may be wrong again, but I'm trying to figure out why they're blocking competitors that are not using their formula.


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

akar said:


> Yeah - I get that I was wrong about monopolies. I admit that, so I did some more research and this: "Contrary to popular belief, monopolies are not illegal in the United States. What is illegal is actions taken by monopolies to limit competition." - econoedlink is what I meant. It seems to me that sawgrass is illegally blocking competition when they use their financial might to stop businesses that have different formulations but not the financial backing to handle years of litigation. Isn't that how they're stopping the competition, by scaring them with the thought of lengthy litigation that could bankrupt them? I may be wrong again, but I'm trying to figure out why they're blocking competitors that are not using their formula.


Yes, what you describe is a weakness in our legal system. Here is some interesting reading. The first document is not very hard reading. Link is good, the icon this message board just looks funny.

[media]http://www.stanford.edu/dept/law/ipsc/pdf/feldman-robin.pdf[/media]


Challenges of the New Economy: Issues at the Intersection of Antitrust and Intellectual Property


A few years back Epson was in a huge controversy using their patents for inkjet carts to preserve their ink monopoly.

A retired and former FTC Antitrust attorney who also happened to be a gifted B&W photographer and ink innovator has an interesting take on Epsons practices at the time. His inksets can be found over at inksupply.com. In B&W photography circles he is a legend. 

ITC-Letter

PaulRoark.com -- Paul Roark's Photographic Home

Another place for so excellent resources on these topics is

https://www.eff.org/work

These folks have helped in the fight for people like us to be able to refill our carts, fight companies that misuse their patents etc. 

Fred Von Lohmann is the patent expert over at EFF, suggest to read the blogs over there. These Attorney's are heros, we would likely not be imprinting without them. *Suggest anyone reading this go over there and sign up to support them. *

https://www.eff.org/patent

Mr. Lohmann filed a "Friend of the Court" brief with the SCOTUS and that court decision keeps companies like Sawgrass from abusing Patent law to restrict what we do post sale with products. They can limit somewhat through contract law, but fortunately there is already considerable consumer protection from predatory business contracts, and they are fighting those as well. 

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/06/supreme-court-victory-patent-first-sale-doctrine

Good news is that there are those in position of being able to fight back from both predatory businesses and "Big Brother" and aware of those issues you bring up.


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## Red Earth (Jan 10, 2008)

tfalk said:


> Somehow, I think the US Attorneys have better things to worry about than a couple of shop owners who are pissed off at Sawgrass charging more than you think you want to spend on their products. I also don't see how you can possibly compare a couple of hundred shops using their ink to millions of people using Microsoft software. Microsoft tried to block other developers from using their internal code. Sawgrass created a process that nobody else thought of and is protecting their investment. How would YOU feel if you spent years and millions of dollars developing a unique process and someone down the street started undercutting you? Somehow, I suspect you would also be crying 'FOUL'.
> 
> Maybe you could go down to the park in NY and have them add this to the OWS demands? Other than that, I don't think you have much chance of having things changed...
> 
> If you can't afford their inks, than maybe your business model isn't as good as you think?


I won't speak for everyone, but in all honesty if SG ink actually worked and didn't systematically destroy every piece of equipment you put it in, I don't think anyone would have any problem with the cost.

I work in the medical field and I am used to drugs with patents and paying more for them until the patent runs out. I have no problem with that. But if a drug company developed a pharmaceutical that kills half the patients I administer it too and then proceeds to sue any other drug companies that market similar drugs that actually work, I have a huge ethical/philosophical problem with that.

That's my business model, but hey that's just me.

I'm SG free since March and still 100% perfect nozzle checks and zero head cleanings.


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## royster13 (Aug 14, 2007)

Red Earth said:


> I won't speak for everyone, but in all honesty if SG ink actually worked and didn't systematically destroy every piece of equipment you put it in, I don't think anyone would have any problem with the cost.


It is just nonsense to think the ink is that bad....If it were like you suggest, Sawgrass would have been out of business years ago....But contrary to that, they have grown bigger and bigger as time has passed....So what you are saying simply does not make sense.....


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

royster13 said:


> It is just nonsense to think the ink is that bad....If it were like you suggest, Sawgrass would have been out of business years ago....But contrary to that, they have grown bigger and bigger as time has passed....So what you are saying simply does not make sense.....


Yes I agree, and how well something "works" is a relative term. 

It's working good enough to sell, but certainly there are better inks. 

Sawgrass can keep the better inks off the desktop, but only because of the patent they are holding and abusing. 

They have grown bigger though not because they are better ... when there was ink competition the "pie" was divided, once the others were driven out of business SG "ate" their share of the pie.


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## royster13 (Aug 14, 2007)

Without strong patent protection innovation would be "stomped" to the ground.....No one would invest a bucket load of money without being able to keep others from bringing products to the market....


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

royster13 said:


> Without strong patent protection innovation would be "stomped" to the ground.....No one would invest a bucket load of money without being able to keep others from bringing products to the market....


Yes, and when companies don't abuse their patents they should be rewarded with exclusivity. In return for the exclusive rights the public is allowed the "trade secret" once the patent has expired. Without patent protection companies otherwise have to guard their "trade secrets" very closely, and may have little protection if they are leaked.

That's how it is supposed to work anyway.

The issue with Sawgrass is that what they claim with their inks are not being "stepped on" by others.. _Big shocker_, what SG actually patented is not being used by SG in their inks, or even necessary.

Keep in mind SG didn't patent sub inks, they patented a mixture used in the inks that is supposed to keep the inks from "activating" in a thermal print head. If the printhead is not thermal it can't activate the inks. 

Activation in this context means the inks actually turning into gas (sublimating prematurely) due to the print head heat. In Piezo electric printers the print head uses static charge to move the inks, not heat.


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## royster13 (Aug 14, 2007)

Whether they patented it or not, they have an enforceable patent.....As far as them abusing the patent, I doubt they are doing things any differently that other companies that have patents do....Just look at Apple and Microsoft and how they have "stomped" all over little folks (IMO).....The great thing is all the power is in the marketplace....If you do not like something, you can talk with your wallet and not give them any of your money.....But it would appear you would be in the minority because there are lots of printers out there running Sawgrass Inks.....


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## akar (Jul 1, 2011)

that was good reading, mike, thanks. sawgrass does seem, to me, to be predatory and exclusionary. When a company has a good product, they invite competition and beat through great support networks, word of mouth and superior materials. competition drives innovation. sawgrass is, therefore, preventing innovation. If their business is currently strong it's not because of the aforementioned business practices, but through predation of smaller businesses and exclusionary practices by way of legal threats. Basically, bullying. Many products are sold simply through strong advertising, too, and it doesn't mean that it's the best product on the market, but it is legal and fair. The success of sawgrass depends on exclusionary practices; therefore, the company is not protecting their patent, but simply breaking the law and the moral code of ethics within the business world.


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