Ninestar Makes Chips Used in Counterfiet Cartridges And It's Your Fault

We inside the industry have known this for decades:  China does not believe in IP.  

China believes once an idea is out in the world, it is anyone's to use and profit from.  China believes that the only way they can compete on the world stage is to steal other people's work - which is bad enough.  What makes this more egregious is they market it as their own.

China cannot innovate.

There, I said it.  You know this.  You know what I say is true.  For me, it is and has been, crystal clear.  Take a look at the Chinese fighter jets - they look like ours. Check out the Red Chinese aircraft carriers.  They look like Great Britain's.

Why has nobody called these communists out?  For a good reason: Money

Our small niche in the Universe is impacted by China.

It doesn't matter if you're an HP fanboy, or believe HP's latest dealer agreements 'steal my data and my accounts'; it doesn't even matter if, like me, you don't hold the 'reman and third party toner heads' in the highest regard.  Dumpster Diving went corporate.  

Hazahhh!

But here's my dilemma:  How different is taking one company's patent, manufacturing identical chips, and falsely marketing those chips 'original' and selling them different from running an author's content through AI with the prompt, "Rewrite this in the style of me."

https://www.action-intell.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/AI-Report-Testing-Finds-Ninestar-Source-for-Chips-on-Counterfeits.pdf

My inner struggles aside, I do not like the fact that these chips report themselves as "HP Original" when they are not.  I do not like the fact that it took a rather involved study to bring these details to light.  True, I am torn as to know HP paid for the project, but after careful review of said study, 19 pages on the primary and another 22 from a supporting study, it is apparent the funding source is irrelevant.

Bottom line, as of today, 

1. Ninestar made fake chips that could be programmed to report as "genuine hp".
2. Marketed by Ninestar or its subsidiaries, these chips were installed on counterfeit toner cartridges and sold as HP toner.
3. The chips were programmed to falsely report 'genuine' and US consumers purchased the cartridges in good faith.

The following is a ChatGPT-assisted summary of the report can be found here.

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In the world of digital imaging hardware, the battle against counterfeit consumables is as relentless as it is costly. The Imaging Supplies Coalition estimates that approximately $3.5 billion worth of fake products is sold annually, with HP Inc. among the prime targets of counterfeiters due to its vast installed base of digital printing devices.

To combat this pervasive problem, HP turned to the expertise of MicroNet Solutions, Inc., a recognized authority in reverse-engineering integrated circuits for chip design houses and other entities examining patent and intellectual property claims. Chips are a crucial element for ink and toner cartridges, and they are a key factor in producing counterfeit cartridges.

Through extensive testing of toner cartridges used in some of HP's most popular LaserJet machines, MicroNet Solutions uncovered some shocking findings:

1. Counterfeit and third-party toner cartridges often use chips that generate false printer messages, leading unsuspecting end-users to believe they are using genuine HP cartridges.
2. Ninestar and its subsidiaries are responsible for producing and marketing "off-the-shelf chips" that trick printers into falsely identifying non-HP cartridges as authentic HP products.
3. Ninestar and its subsidiaries also create and market programmable chips that can either correctly identify a third-party cartridge as a non-HP product or misidentify the third-party cartridge as a genuine HP product.

The chips produced by Ninestar and its subsidiaries that generate these deceitful messages feature code that infringes HP's copyright and trademark protections.

MicroNet Solutions' testing was incomplete until they removed the protective covering from the infringing chips in a process known as "de-capping." This enabled them to do a side-by-side comparison of the exposed silicon housing the microcontrollers. The comparison of chip samples provided conclusive evidence that Ninestar and its subsidiaries were behind the following:

1. The chips found on counterfeit cartridges falsely identify third-party cartridges as HP supplies.
2. The off-the-shelf and re-programmable chips marketed by Ninestar or its subsidiaries falsely identify third-party cartridges as HP supplies.
3. The chips found on cartridges made by Ninestar correctly identify them as non-HP products.