Saturday 19 July 2014

A brief account of Counterfeit Toner Cartridges

In the last few years the printer manufacturing companies like Xerox, Cannon and Lexmark have been struggling against the prospering illegal distribution network of counterfeit toner cartridges including countries such as United States. A counterfeit toner cartridge looks like a toner cartridges similar to Xerox toners , Cannon toners and Lexmark toners and will even have logos and will come in packages resembling those coming from big brands, leading the consumer believe that he is buying an actual genuine OEM toner cartridge. However in reality the toner are manufactured by unknown, unauthorized manufacturers. Since these unauthorized manufacturers don’t operate under any legal framework, they do not comply with the today’s printing compliance standards. Use of this unauthorized and untested toner can lead to serious damage to your printers. They are not going to last as long as a genuine printer toners and will not print as clear as the genuine printer toners would. However genuine Xerox toners , Cannon toners and Lexmark toners will deliver unparallel printing quality.

Cannon toners and Lexmark toners


In the year 2004, Xerox Company in assistance with custom officials of several countries was able to seize more than 7,200 counterfeit toner cartridges that claimed to be the genuine Xerox toners. The estimated value of seize then was worth around 1.3million. Hundreds and thousands of counterfeit products worth over millions of dollars are confiscated each year. This is a problem that has plagued the entire printing industry. Users need to be very vigilant when buying product to receive genuine Xerox toners since they have paid for it.

Imaging Supplies Coalition is a non profit trade association comprising of members from original equipment manufacturers. The members of ISC team comprise of members from Brother, Canon, Epson, HP, Xerox, Lexmark etc. So far Lexmark has been successful in identifying and thousands of counterfeit Lexmark toners and has filed a case against a New York based company named Finetone. The company, Finetone was allegedly importing counterfeit Lexmark toners and distributing counterfeit Lexmark toners.  The packaging contained unauthorized trademark usage of Lexmark and carried unauthorized reproduction.
In the year 2005, Canon conducted a massive civil raid on US distributors alleged to be involved in the sale of sale of counterfeit Canon toners. Canon was successful in seizing thousands of counterfeit Canon toners worth millions of dollars. Distributors have since agreed to not to sell counterfeit Canon toners. They have also ended up paying damages to Canon on number of accounts of violations. Canon encourages its customers to buy only genuine Canon toners from authorized distributors and suppliers. 

Cannon toners and Lexmark toners

HP on the other hand has taken several initiatives in this direction and taken the battle to the web. It has also released several informative and entertaining videos to educate consumers about counterfeit HP toner cartridges. During the year 2005 through 2008, HP has conducted around 4,620 investigations in over 55 countries. This resulted in 3,528 enforcement actions by law enforcement officers. More than $795 million worth of counterfeit HP products has been seized. This includes $8 million worth of counterfeit HP toner cartridges.