A news.com story by David Becker reports that a Federal judge has granted a preliminary injunction against Static Control in the DMCA lawsuit brought by Lexmark.
To review, Lexmark makes printers, and Static Control makes replacement toner cartridges for Lexmark printers. Lexmark’s printers do a cryptographic handshake with Lexmark-brand toner cartridges, and Static Control cartridges do the same crypto handshake so that they will work in Lexmark printers. Lexmark filed a lawsuit, clai ming that the Static Control products violate the DMCA’s anti-circumvention rules.
The preliminary injunction prohibits Static Control from selling the challenged product. I haven’t seen any written opinion from the Court yet; I’ll add a pointer to the opinion if/when I get it.
