This year marks the 10th anniversary of the start of the toner firmware warfare by the OEMs.
Chinese Chip companies like Apex and Static Control are to blame for the start of the firmware warfare by the OEMs. When the hidden attack was planned by HP in 2014, Static Control felt honoured that they were the first to obey to the OEM demand that started the war. (see: https://o1.rtcdn.net/uploads/2019/05/HP-White-Paper.pdf page 29 middle column).
Without the Chinese Copy-Cat Chip industry there would have been a good chance that this war which has been haunting and hurting the genuine reman industry for many years now would not have started.