Cartridges or bottles?
Desktop Printers
These are 13" and smaller printers.
EPSON has been engaging in litigation for years with manufacturers and distributors of compatible desktop printer cartridges, over what EPSON believes is patent infringement concerning its ink cartridges. EPSON won in US Federal Court last year while at nearly the same time some of its patents were rejected in Japan (the home of Seiko-EPSON). EPSON took its victories and filled for a 337 exclusion with the International Trade Commission (ITC)to prevent the import of any non-EPSON cartridges into the USA.
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The ITC sided with EPSON although a defendant (NineStar) insisted that some of these EPSON patents may not be valid in the USA. The ITC issued its 337 exclusion and sent it to the President of the United States for signing. The signing of this document would allow US Customs to intercept any and all non-EPSON cartridges from entering into the USA. On December 19, 2007 the 337 exclusion orders were passed. But on Dec 12, 2007 the United States Patent Office sided with NineStar and rejected some of EPSON's cartridge patents for the reason that the patents applied some prior art and that there was lack of novelty and creativity.
Long story short is that it appears that some of EPSON's cartridge patents are invalid and yet they have made considerable progress to eliminate a number of cartridge manufacturers based on the strength of these patents which are now rejected. We notified customers that we would no longer be able to import cartridges into the USA and therefore would stop selling them. NineStar is expected to file appeals in February. EPSON has asked for and been granted stays in their current litigations.
So it appears you can continue to choose to purchase cartridges or CIS systems for desktop systems. Cartridges are very convenient although they are more expensive than using ink in CIS systems. CIS systems use ink from bottles and their cost of operation is considerably less. All our cartridges can easily be swapped back and forth with EPSON color inks. That in itself may make your decision if you think you want to print both color and black and white with one printer. A CIS is not easy to disconnect and reconnect. We do not recommend CIS use if you want to use one printer for both color inks and black&white inks.
We are becoming more and more concerned about environmental impact of one time use ink cartridges. More than 45 million ink carts were thrown into landfill last year in the USA alone. EPSON neither designs their cartridges for refilling nor for re-use. All Piezography brand desktop cartridges can be refilled and reused. They are actually designed for it. A syringe and a chip resetter are all that are necessary to have both the convenience of cartridges and the economy of bottled ink. Look for the Piezography ink refill kit to begin being sold in March, 2008.
Large Format Printers
These are 17" and wider printers.
We have lifetime use carts for these printers which you can refill over and over again with a small included funnel. We also sell one-time use carts for these printers. Lifetime use carts are as convenient as one-time use carts and yet they can be used with economical bottled inks.
These are lifetime of the printer refill carts for large format printers (these happen to have color inks, but can be filled with Piezography inks)
We encourage you to use refillable carts whenever you can!