Hewlett-Packard faces mounting pressure to abandon one of its most contentious business practices: releasing firmware updates that render third-party ink cartridges inoperable in HP printer models. The company has used this lockout mechanism, called Dynamic Security, for a decade. What's changed is that environmental regulators have finally caught up.
In January 2026, HP released firmware 2602A/B across eleven printer models, rendering countless remanufactured cartridges inoperable. The International Imaging Technology Council (Int'l ITC), a trade group representing remanufacturers and cartridge retailers, promptly filed a complaint. Their argument cuts to the heart of HP's strategy: the company is sidestepping newly updated environmental standards that explicitly forbid the practice.
The EPEAT 2.0 environmental standard, implemented in December 2025, sets tougher sustainability requirements across electronics. To qualify, a printer must accept remanufactured or refilled cartridges without firmware or warranty restrictions. Yet HP has not registered a single printer under EPEAT 2.0, despite registering 29 computers and monitors under the updated criteria. Instead, HP's imaging devices remain listed under the older EPEAT 1.0 standard, which contains language that allowed the company to argue its existing practices were compliant.
The financial calculus is transparent. The majority of HP's imaging revenue comes from consumable cartridge sales rather than printer hardware sales; this context suggests HP's decision not to register printers under EPEAT 2.0 is financially driven. HP's printer hardware operates on the razor-and-blade model: the printers are sold at thin margins or losses, with cartridges generating ongoing profit throughout the device's life.
Why single out HP? The company is distinguished by its approach. HP began the practice of banning unauthorised printer ink in 2016, and it has refined the method to make third-party cartridges unusable rather than merely warn users. Other manufacturers, including Canon and Epson, have chosen not to employ this technology. Neither have adopted the aggressive firmware-update strategy that HP favours.
The environmental stakes matter. HP cartridges contain only between 4 and 45 per cent recycled plastic on average, far below what remanufacturing can achieve, which can exceed 86 per cent recycled content. Remanufactured cartridges represent a genuine circular economy option; blocking them forces consumers to either accept landfill waste or purchase new HP cartridges at premium prices.
HP's practice is not new, nor is the blowback. Since 2018, HP has paid millions in class-action lawsuits in the US, Australia, and Italy for the policy. Each time, the company has paid settlements and occasionally offered firmware downgrades for certain older models. Each time, the practice has resumed or expanded. The pattern suggests that fines have been treated as a cost of doing business rather than a driver of change.
The Int'l ITC's latest complaint rests on stronger ground. HP participated in drafting EPEAT 2.0 starting in 2023 and had ample time to ensure its printers were EPEAT 2.0 compliant by the December 2, 2025 implementation date. The company chose not to. This raises a credibility question about environmental commitments. If HP participated in writing rules it knew it would not follow, that suggests institutional choice rather than technical constraint.
For governments and large institutions that use EPEAT certification to guide purchasing, the situation creates opacity. A printer manufacturer can claim environmental credentials under an older standard while using firmware practices explicitly forbidden under the new one. This undermines the entire purpose of ecolabels, which are meant to help purchasers identify genuinely sustainable products.
The threshold question is whether regulatory bodies will enforce these standards meaningfully. If they do, HP will have to choose between abandoning Dynamic Security or abandoning the EPEAT label entirely. If they do not, the standard becomes performative.