Lexmark lost against Smartek: DMCA's fireback effect

Lexmark just lost in appeal against the small company Smartek. This company is selling a chip that makes it possible to use refilled toner cartridges in Lexmark printers. To develop such a system, Smartek had to perform reverse engineering studies in order to have a system which while being different will perform as well as the original cartridge in Lexmark printers. Lexmark sued Smartek arguing that its chip violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), probably expecting that the case will slam the brakes on the toner cartridge remanufacturing industry and force consumers to buy Lexmark's branded cartridges. However, there are exceptions, one of them being "enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs".
If the judgment is confirmed, it might have a humongous impact in a near future. Let's take some example:
- currently most of the inkjet printers are sold at their manufacturing cost, no profit are made by Manufacturers, as they expect getting money by selling inkjet cartridges. Now, if they are not anymore the only providers of cartridge for their own models, they might react by increasing the price of their printers.
- many users are complaining regarding the lack of compatibility between the different online MusicStores. With the DMCA exceptions mentioned above, on can imagine that WMA or Fairplay protection might have to be modified in order to become compatible with all digital music players.
The DMCA which was heavily criticized when it was voted 4 years ago, and which has been used so far exclusively by big IT, computers and Softwares companies to protect themselves against other companies (a smart way to kill competition), might at the end give fuels for those small companies in order to fire back and try to get their claims granted.