Ink Pricing Injunction Upheld

The U.S. Sixth Circuit reconfirmed a preliminary injunction rebutting a withdraw request from Eastman Kodak Co. (Kodak), stopping it from engaging in a pricing scheme to suppress competition for Versamark printer ink.

According to Law360, the Circuit rejected Kodak’s request and believed the district court had not abused its discretion. Circuit Judge John M revealed the appeals court said Collins Inkjet Co. (Collins) has shown it will likely succeed on the merits of two of the central elements of a tying claim.

The court explained the “tying claim” in details: “[I]f the defendant merely offers a discount on the tying good to buyers who also purchase the tied good, then buyers are only ‘forced’ to buy the tied good elsewhere at a price low enough to offset the forgone discount for the tying product. The defendant uses its market power over the tying good to shift the discount from the tied good to the tying good, but this in itself does not ‘force’ buyers to purchase the tied product any more than a discount on the tied product would.”, reported by mydistributionlaw.com.

Collins, once one of Kodak’s key suppliers of inks, terminated the contacts in 2012 May. Realizing that Collins customers tended to stay with or shift to Collins, Kodak informed Collins’ customers in May that the price for refurbished printheads would go up if they use non-Kodak inks. The price hike has made it difficult for customers to use Collins’ products, making Collins suffered further harm since August 2012.

In 2014 March, Recycling Times reported the Ohio federal court imposed a preliminary injunction upon an antitrust case proposed by Collins, accusing Kodak of suppressing competition for Versamark printer ink. Later in 2014 July, Kodak requested the Sixth Circuit to void the preliminary injunction and claimed the lower court should not have issued an order to stop Kodak from cutting its ink jet ink prices.

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