Dymo Corporation

Dymo Corporation is an American manufacturing company of handheld label printers and thermal-transfer printing tape as accessory, embossing tape label makers, and other printers such as CD and DVD labelers and durable medical equipment.

The company is a subsidiary of Newell Brands.

History

Dymo Industries, Inc. was founded in 1958 to produce handheld tools that use embossing tape.[1] The embossing tape and handheld plastic embossing labeler was invented by David Souza from Oakland, California.[2]

Dymo was acquired by Esselte in 1978,[3] and battery-powered printers became a major product after 1990. On June 1, 1998, CoStar Corporation, the manufacturer of the LabelWriter brand of thermal label printers, was acquired by Esselte Office Products. Although CoStar remained independent at first, it would later be folded into Dymo, initially as Dymo-CoStar, and later simply as Dymo, dropping the "CoStar" moniker altogether.[4][5][6][7]

The Dymo Corporation would later be sold to Newell Rubbermaid in 2005.[1][8]

Label sizes

Following is a list of the label sizes popular for their LabelWriter (400, 450) printer series:[9]

Criticism

The LabelWriter 550 and 5XL has an RFID reader that reads RFID tags embedded in Dymo genuine label rolls to automatically detect the label type inside.[12] However, this is also to prevent the use of third-party compatible label rolls, a form of digital rights management similar to inkjet printer cartridges and laser printer cartridges containing a chip to prevent the designing and manufacturing of third-party cartridges. Dymo has received criticism for using a razor and blades model by forcing customers to purchase genuine Dymo label rolls.[13]

See also

  • Dymo DiscPainter

References

  1. CableOrganizer.com. The History of DYMO® www.cableorganizer.com, retrieved 2016-03-06^
  2. Hand operated embossing tool patent^
  3. Bay-Area entrepreneur-humanitarian Rudolph Hurwich dies at 92 (Community Voices) - Oakland Local Oakland Local, retrieved 2016-03-06^
  4. CoStar Acquired by Esselte CoStar.com, retrieved 2025-05-02^
  5. How CoStar became Dymo Dymo-CoStar.com, retrieved 2025-05-02^
  6. Technical Support: Why is the name Dymo being used instead of CoStar? Dymo-CoStar.com, retrieved 2025-05-02^
  7. Press Releases Dymo.com, retrieved 2025-05-02^
  8. Newell Rubbermaid to acquire label manufacturer Dymo Corp. www.cablinginstall.com, October 2005, retrieved 2016-03-06^
  9. LabelWriter (LW) Labels Dymo Corporation, retrieved 22 May 2015^
  10. Specs for 30253 PTouchDirect.com, retrieved 22 May 2015^
  11. Citation for 1760756 retrieved 22 May 2015^
  12. Mike Peterson. If you thought printer cartridge DRM was bad, Dymo is forcing users to buy RFID paper AppleInsider, 21 February 2022, retrieved 10 March 2022^
  13. Cory Doctorow. The Worst Timeline: A Printer Company Is Putting DRM in Paper Now Electronic Frontier Foundation, 15 February 2022, retrieved 10 March 2022^