robu rese repair markets for those goods. let s bringt down to what you ve been doing. can you explain what your business does and what they re now telling you can t do. we ll see what supreme court says. thank you. impression products is a family owned business head quartered out of charleston west virginia. we specialize in desk top laser printers, making the toner ca cartridges that go in the printers. anyone that buys the product, we give away a free on site printer support warranty. basically letting customer know these cartridges are fully guaranteed and will work just as good as the oem product. you ve been doing this for 40 years, about? am i right about that. what. this company has been around how long. 40 years, yes.
in monday morning to 6,000 e-mails. our mind set is part of our company promise, we answered everybody, and sent them a sample. everything is read. an upcoming case scheduled to be decided by the supreme court could change a patent law to affect thousands of small businesses. impression products was refilling and reselling desktop laser toner cartridges made by lexmark. they sued patent infringements which was upheld. they will put resale companies out of business. eric smith is the owner of impression products and paul hughes with mayer brown the company representing him. good to see both of you. thank you. thank you for taking the time to come talk to us. i want to unpack what this case is. why don t we start with you,
ownership of patented goods and whether or not there are ro bust sales for the goods. break it down to what you have been doing, eric. explain what your business does and what they are telling you you can t do or lexmark tells you you can t do. thank you, j.j. impression products is a family owned business out of charleston, west virginia. j.j., we specialize in desktop laser printers, making the supplies, the toner cartridges that go in the printers and then for anyone that buys the toner cartridges through our company, we also give away a free, on sight printer support warranty, basically letting the customer know these cartridges are fully guaranteed and will work just as good as the oem product. you have been doing this for 40 years, about? am i right about that?
with you because you re kicking our butt here in the marketplace, you need to go away. that s just not something. if you re a competitor and you believe in what you re doing, you re going to stand up and fight, and that s what we re doing. and paul, you re obviously broadening this from this particular company and what s happening with impression products. from your perspective, what are the implications here? the implications are enormous. the question is whether or not there can be resale markets for patented goods, and that includes virtually anything. that includes cars, cell phones, any equipment that companies buy and use in their production. if lexmark s rule is correct, the seller of those goods can say, once you purchase it, you don t have the right to resell it on the open market or you don t have the right to repair it, or they can say you can only sell to licensed dealers who will buy it at fixed prices. that s not how competition works. our economy has always had robus