In their amended class action complaint, the plaintiffs argued that HP withheld vital information by including software in its all-in-one printer/scanner/fax machines that disabled non-printing functions when out of ink and not telling buyers that was the case.

"It is well-documented that ink is not required to scan or to fax a document, and it is certainly possible to manufacture an All-in-One printer that scans or faxes when the device is out of ink," the plaintiffs argued in their complaint.

The amended complaint was filed in February this year after US federal Judge Beth Labson Freeman dismissed the suit because it hadn't adequately stated a claim.

Armed with their amended complaint, lawyers for San Franciscan Gary Freund and Minneapolis resident Wayne McMath have succeeded at not only making relevant claims but survived an attempt by HP to have the case dismissed.

In the amended complaint, Freund and McMath's lawyers argue that HP's move to disable devices that were low on ink was intentional, citing HP's comments from a support forum post in which an HP support agent told a user complaining of similar issues that their "HP printer is designed in such a way that with the empty cartridge or without the cartridge the printer will not function."