Epson is a Japanese multinational electronics company and one of the world’s largest manufacturers of computer printers, information and imaging related equipment. Headquartered in Suwa, Nagano, Japan, the company has numerous subsidiaries worldwide and manufactures inkjet, dot matrix, thermal and laser printers for consumer, business and industrial use, scanners, laptop and desktop computers, video projectors, watches, point of sale systems, robots and industrial automation equipment, semiconductor devices, crystal oscillators, sensing systems and other associated electronic components.

In July 2003, a Dutch consumer association advised its 640,000 members to boycott Epson inkjet printers. The Netherlands-based organisation alleged that Epson customers were unfairly charged for ink they could never use. Later that month, however, the group retracted its call for a nationwide boycott of Epson products and issued a statement conceding that residual ink left in Epson cartridges was necessary for the printers to function properly.

Epson designed ink to be left in the cartridges (and in fact they have done so ever since they developed the piezoelectric head) due to the way the capping mechanism worked. If the capping mechanism dries out, then the heads risk getting clogged, and thus an expensive repair will be necessary. The reason that the Dutch consumer association retracted their statement was that, as pointed out, Epson had made a statement regarding how many pages (at usually a 5% coverage of an A4 sheet of paper) each cartridge could sustain for printing.

Nonetheless, Epson America, Inc. settled a class-action lawsuit brought before the Los Angeles Superior Court. It did not admit guilt, but they agreed to refund $45 to anyone who purchased an Epson inkjet printer after April 8, 1999 (at least $20 of which must be used at Epson’s E-Store).

According to IDG News Service, Epson filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) in February 2006, against 24 companies that manufactured, imported, or distributed Epson-compatible ink cartridges for resale in the U.S. On March 30, 2007, ITC judge Paul Luckern issued an initial determination that the ink cartridges in question did infringe upon Epson’s patents. The judge also recommended those companies and others to be barred from manufacturing, importing, or reselling Epson cartridges in the U.S., said Epson.

In 2015 it emerged that Epson printers reported that cartridges are empty when in fact 20% of their ink remains.