Printer manufacturers have taken some pretty major steps to protect the profits the earn on printer cartridges. HP, Lexmark, and Epson have all filed lawsuits against ink cartridge remanufacturers. HP and Epson have also spent a lot of money on technology that goes in to their cartridges. Overall, we have not heard much from either Canon or Dell.

San Francisco based Cryptography Research, Inc (CRI) is hoping a technology they are developing can aid printer manufacturers in their quest to eliminate the remanufactured at compatible ink cartridge market. CRI is developing a chip that uses cryptography designed to make it harder for printers to print with non-manufacturer brand cartridges. CRI is not looking to put an end to the remanufactured and compatible ink cartridge market, they are simply looking to make it harder for “pirated” cartridges to be used.

The pirated ink cartridges are those that are refilled or remanufactured, but are then sold as new, manufacturer brand cartridges. It is estimated that pirated ink cartridges help make up the $3 Billion a year that printer manufacturers lose.

CRI’s goal is to create a chip that will make sure that will allow only certain ink cartridges to communicate with certain printers. Their chip would create a random code for each ink cartridge in order to thwart hackers. A hacker would have to break the code of each cartridge to use it. The chip is not in use in the industry yet, but it is estimated to be in use by early 2008.

Sounds like an interesting opportunity for printer manufacturers to work to recuperate some profits.

Let Pacific Ink know what you think of this technology.