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iPod Shuffle Lookalike Hits CeBIT
An anonymous reader writes "It shouldn't be long before Apple's legal team goes after this one. LuxPro out of Taiwan introduced the Super Shuffle at CeBit, a look-a-like portable that is identical to the iPod Shuffle right down to the sihouette ads, but with the addition of an FM tuner and voice recording."
Using a "similar" name is still trademark infringement. They're using Apple's brand to sell their product.
How we know is more important than what we know.
1. Make it black
2. Make the circular control area square.
3. Make it narrower (even if it means making it longer to cram the electronics in). This is one area where it would actually improve on the real Shuffle, which is just too wide, especially where it plugs in, requiring a USB extension cable or unplugging the other plugs that are crammed in near the USB plug.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
IAAL and...
You can actually protect style and aesthetics to a certain extent. It depends on the jurisdiction, but in many countries there is intellectual properties in designs, as opposed to patented methods or copyrighted works. In Australia, for instance, the rip-off iPod would clearly breach rights in Apple's shuffle design, assuming they were validly registered etc., not because of the similar functionality but because of the identical aesthetics.
Furthermore, Apple may have an action for 'passing off' in that this company is clearly trying to ride on Apple's market reputation to sell their own product through the name, advertising and styling of the device. This is an illicit subversion of Apple's goodwill and they will be able to take action on this basis in most countries.
Finally, if the allegations about asian tech manufacturers and Apple's partners prove true, there will very likely be an action in contract or equity against any company that has participated in sharing the technology used in the Shuffle for this device.
That is the legal position. My OPINION, however, is that Apple deserve to get screwed over because this new device looks as good and has better functionality than the Shuffle. Plus it is refreshing to see that you don't have to have the Godly powers of Steve Jobs in your fingertips to produce the same hardware at the same (or lower, presumably) price.
Read Pynchon.
Apple to stop CeBIT presentation of iPod shuffle clone
Heise News article (in German) and the Google-Translation (replace "conditions" with "booth", and it makes more sense). LuxPro had removed the notPod from their booth on Friday, but put it up again on Saturday.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
You're correct. Under English law, Apple have at least three causes of action:
- trademark re. the name
- design rights re. the design
- "passing off", i.e. selling a product which people may think is made or endorsed by Apple.
Most of the major jurisdictions have similar laws.
Apperently, if anyone was wondering what the Apple lawyers were gonna do, it's here
Right after Apple released the iMac back in 1998, everyone started jumping on the "all-in-one" PC thing again. A new company at the time, eMachines, tried to market a near copy of it called the eOne PC. They were slapped with injunctions in the US and Tokyo shortly after that and later forced to stop production.
The review for the eOne is still up on epinions, along with a stock photo: eOne Photo
Daewoo tried something similar. They both got the smack down. See here.
Do you remember when Cobalt Networks was about to sue Apple over the Cube? Because of Cobalt's Qube design? Only to find out a few months later Apple owned NeXT at that point, which created the original Cube. At that point Cobalt changed their tune and decided suing might not be so smart. Some Cobalt info.
The reason for suing is brand dilution. When you make a look-a-like, you're copying a design that's identified with the product. It's the same reason stores brand soda tries to have similar color schemes to Coke, or Pepsi. You identify the product by the colors, shapes and patterns of the packaging or product itself.
I get what the Taiwanese company is doing. They would have been better off sticking to knock off Nintendo games though. I'd guarantee Apple already knows about the knock off at this point, and we'll probably be seeing lawsuits within a week or two.
For example your title is difficult to understand. If you say "The Shuffle is a clone to begin with" people expect to see some "prior art".
... so they're "functionally identical".
Apple created a USB2.0 player for MP3/AAC/M4A/M4B/M4P/AA/AppleLossless/WAV(?)/AIFF and does not allow song uploads via USB MassStorage. Your stick is a USB1.1 player for MP3/WMA files and scans its MassStorage memory for songs.
Well, both players support mp3-files
q.e.d.
> IANAL but I don't think there is much apple can do. Unless
> they stole some patented technology, they should be fine with
> that desing. You cannot copyright style or asthetics.
I don't that's true. Patents aren't the only thing protected. Designs, trademarks, logos, and appearances are protected, too.
You can't market a product that can be mistakened for the product of another. The reason is that psychologically, people associated items that look similar as having the same quality as the original product, and consumers will assume that the two companies have something in common. In other words, the rip-off product is trying to bank on the consumer perception of the original product.
In my Consumer Behavior class we studied the case of a regional soft drink called "Corr's Natural Soda". The can looked vaguely like "Coors", but the script was different (to someone paying attention) and the former can had a big cross-section of a lemon on it.
Coor's Brewing Company sued the regional soda manufacturer claiming that "Corr's" was trying to facilitate their market position and gain benefits through the name and the look of the can. The latter defended by saying that it was named after the owner "Robert Corr".
The courts sided with Coor's Brewing Company. They told the regional soda company to change the product to make it less similar to Coors. They were told to not put the name in script and if they wanted to name their soda after the person, they had to use the guy's full name and not just the last name with an apostrophe s so as to not deceive. The soda was changed to "Robert Corr Natural Soda," the name was put in a regular (albeit ugly) Serif font, and the can looked different enough from Coors that no one would expect there to be a connection.
The Coors versus Corr's case gives some insight, so I think Apple has a case. Many people will look at this "Super Shuffle" and think either Apple made it (since it looks almost exactly like the iPod shuffle), or that this company builds it for Apple (and thus the customer is getting the same product for less money because they don't pay Apple's markup). Then they'll go home and find out it doesn't support purchases from the iTunes Music Store, and you'll have some unhappy customers.
Clearly this ripoff product is gaining value by banking on Apple's look and feel. The fact that they put "Shuffle" in the name (a non-obvious name that only has value now that Apple has an iPod shuffle) and their ad rips Apple's ads off makes it worse.
I'm sure Apple Legal will have a response Monday morning. Like with the case of Future Power who ripped off the iMacs years ago, Apple needs to quelch the iPod ripoffs early and often. If someone wants to make a competing product, great, but market the product on its own merits, not trying to deceive customers.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
The use of symbols is not required by law. If you register your trademark, you get to skip over the part of the lawsuit where you demonstrate that it's a trademark.
In this case, demonstrating that "shuffle" is an integral part of the "iPod shuffle" mark would take about two paragraphs and ten minutes of a legal assistant's time to type up.
The basic purpose of trademark is preventing consumer confusion. When one company markets a product, they advertise unique features of their product that allows the consumer to choose their widge machine over the next guy's. They attach claims to their advertisements too, describing things like guarantees and warranty, plus associating the company's good name (reputation) with the product.
Another company selling widget machines might decide that instead of spending money on marketing, they can just make their widget machine look identical to (or very close to) the well-known widget machine. This creates "brand confusion", and pisses off customers when they buy what they thought was brand X but in fact was a visual knock-off of brand X by brand Y. They thought they were getting the promises from brand X, but brand Y is usually a lower quality unit with none of the promises, and the customer also finds they were not in fact buying from the well known and trusted brand, but rather some unheard of company. This is a case of fraud, where you are trying to trick the consumer into buying your product under the pretense that it's a different product.
To illustrate... If you went to the grocery store and bought a bag of Cheetos and got home and started munching on them and they tasted like crap, (or, really, tasted like anything besides Cheetos) then you look closely at the bag (which at a glance looks IDENTICAL to a bag of Cheetos) and see the name is "Cheatos", you too would be pissed. Trademark laws are not only to help companies - they also protect the consumer against fraud.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
This isn't 'IP' like software patents, or DMCA copyright schemes, it's 'IP' as in 'identity'.
No one would cry 'foul' at this product, if it were functionally exactly like it is now, but didn't look just like an iPod shuffle, and wasn't packaged with Apple type adverts (dancing black silhouettes with white 'pods over a green background).
I agree that fighting competition with 'IP" instead of innovation is evil, but this thing isn't 'competition', it's impersonation.
"The iPod ear-bud headphones are among the best we've tested."
> This is much more like software patents, where we get frustrated with the fact that we're not allowed to copy what somebody already invented. Generally speaking copying is allowed.
No, the issue with software patents is that most of the patents are for things so trivial that anyone could (and probably has) independantly develop them.
A software patent on an application that is suffiently innovative, non trivial and non obvious is no better or worse than a patent on a physical invention, it's just that in the world of software patents, the patent examiners seem to have no clue and assume that anything someone has done with a computer must be worthy of patenting.
If you have any other problem with software patents then it's not software patents you have a problem with, it's patents in general.
But back to the Super Suffle.
It looks almost identical to the iPod Shuffle, and it has an extremely similar name - "xxx Shuffle"
I've never heard of another MP3 player called "Shuffle" so it's certainly not a generic term.
I think it well and truly satisfies the "Confusingly similar" requirement.
Similar to copyright, trademarks don't _need_ to be registered to be protected under trademark law.
I guess the real issue here is whether or not they will try to sell it in a market that has trademark laws that will allow Apple to sue them.
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