(Photo: Canon) After the customer realized that several printer models could not scan or fax without ink, Canon found itself in a lawsuit. You read that right: Without that exact thing, those functions that are not technically dependent on the existence of ink will not work.

Canon printer user David Leacraft filed a class action lawsuit last week after discovering that his Pixma MG2522 could not scan documents when the ink level recorded by the device was low or absent. Along with more than 100 other group members, Leacraft sought a $5 million award for unjust enrichment, express breach of warranty, and failure to disclose important information. The former mainly accused Canon of using this flaw to sell more ink cartridges, while others claimed that Canon's "all-in-one" advertisements for its printers were "false, misleading, and likely to deceive the public," the lawsuit said. .

Canon will not warn its customers that some printers cannot scan or fax without ink (this is not surprising, otherwise no one might buy these devices). As the lawsuit points out more wisely, this is an annoying surprise for customers who want to use the printer for things other than printing. In addition to asking for monetary compensation, Leacraft's legal representatives also asked Canon to state in its advertisements that the "all-in-one" features of most of its printers depend on the fact that certain ink levels are maintained. The lawsuit even pointed to Canon's long-term relationship with the public as a trustworthy and reliable technology brand, and suggested that Canon abused this trust and failed to resolve the printer's reliance on ink in its advertisements. This issue affects at least 20 Canon printer models in the Pixma and Maxify series.

Canon's Pixma TS8320 is one of more than 20 models affected by this issue. (Photo: Canon)

 It is not necessary to have an in-depth understanding of printer mechanics to know that ink does not participate in any scanning and fax functions (that is, at the sender's end). Canon itself admitted to the wrong logic in a support forum post pointed out in the lawsuit: customers who own Pixma MX330 complained about not being able to scan without ink, and asked why the scanning function was affected. A support agent replied: “The printer requires both ink cartridges to be installed in the printer to scan, even if their ink levels are low or used up. In addition, when the printer has an error condition (such as out of ink), Until the problem is resolved, other functions of the device will not be able to be performed."

Related to this is that nowadays many pre-installed and third-party smartphone apps allow you to scan or fax, so... do what you want.

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