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IBM Sues Company Selling Fake, Flammable Batteries
Bergkamp10 writes "A Computerworld article is reporting that IBM is suing Shentech for selling laptop batteries that catch on fire and sport allegedly fake IBM logos. IBM apparently followed up on a claim by a customer that an 'IBM' laptop battery bought at Shentech caught on fire and damaged his laptop. The customer reported the problem to Lenovo (who license Big Blue's trademark) who subsequently ordered 12 batteries from Shentech and found them all to be fakes. IBM is asking for US$1 million in damages for each dodgy battery sold."
Ouch. What a large amount of money. I wonder why they're suing for so much? Probably trying to defend their name. Guess that's what you get for messing with Big Blue. . .
They're in the US - it should be possible to track their warehouses and resources via shipping records. Let loose the Nazgul!
Shentech's slogan: They're the hottest product on the market!
01110000 01010111 01101110 00110011 01100100
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All lithium-ion batteries are highly flammable, not just these. It's just that Shentech batteries are apparently more prone to spontaneous ignition than others.
John
The store mentioned in TFA looks pretty shady to begin with, with products like "iPod Nano Alike" and such [Quote from site; "Why pay more for iPod Nano where you can get this better funtioned MP3 player for just 1/5 of the price?"].
Usually it's a question whether the consumers should wise up, or whether cheap knockoffs should be removed due to copyright infringement. But in this case where one company is blatantly putting another company's label on their inferior product, that's undoubtedly when the law needs to fix things.
It's good that Big blue is doing something to stop this, but part of me doesn't have much sympathy for someone who would order parts from a site like that.
Damnit, I want the genuine sony flammable batteries!
I can't speak for their prior practices (fake IBM logos), but on their web site now they make it very clear they are selling third party batteries.
On the other hand, they are selling "iPod Nano alike MP3 players". Gotta love that "alike".
This is good news for me. I just bought an IBM Thinkpad T61, so I can be extra careful when I buy my new 9-cell batteries. Thanks for the bad news.
I ordered two Apple Powerbook AC adapters from them, which they were selling about $30 less than Apple list, a year or so ago; both died within a week. Shentech exchanged them - they refused to refund at first, depite my concerns that they had a bad lot - and the replacements died also. I asked for a refund this time, being pretty confident that any replacements they sent would be from the same production run, but they refused until I threatened to dispute the credit card charge with my bank. In retrospect I'm 99.9% confident that they were bogus, and this story seems to confirm my suspicions.
The punchline? I ordered the adapters from a different company and had the same problem. Getting a refund was easier this time, and I gave up and went to the Apple store. So much for trying to save a buck.
In Soviet Amerika YOU kill exploding laptop batteries.
is a fake logo?
therefore there has to be a record somewhere of where their inventory is being shipped from. Even if it's overseas, the importer still has to be on record, with resources ripe for the picking.
Maybe the US Government can't do all that, but I'll bet IBM can. The Nazgul, now, they're the apple of the Big Blue Eye, and for good reason.
Trying to start a flame war here guys but.. .maybe someone should give the Zune Tattoo guy one of these??
Hmmm... A million bucks per dodgy fake battery sold. And this company sold how many of these? A million. So that means they owe IBM about... $1,000,000,000,000.00. That would be a trillion dollars. Which is 1/12th of the GDP of the United States. Yeah. I think IBM could probably collect that with no problem at all. It's just a matter of someone writing a check and putting a whole bunch of zeroes on it.
If fake Apple products catch fire, it is the just wrath of the almighty Jobs sending a message to the nonbelievers. If your knockoff power adapters simply died without incident, I'd say you got off easy.
This would be a great prank to buy one of these for my egotistic friend who just got a new laptop
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Are they suing because they have a patent on flaming batteries? They'll have to go after Sony too.
IBM can sue, sure. Who's going to show up in court? The lawyers from a Chinese company? Why would they? There is no jurisdiction. I suppose IBM could sue in China. Fat lot of good that would do.
And exactly what is wrong with copyright and trademark infringement? What possible right does any government have to stick their nose into the manufacturing practices of a company in a foreign land? Is IBM somehow above the status of "government" now? I don't think so. IBM might be able to bully China into doing something but it certainly isn't going to have much effect.
China is busily producing cheaper manufactured goods by the shipload. People in the US seem to be happy to get them. So what if there are a few contaminated food items, some defective electronics and so on. Maybe a few pets die. The big deal is cheaper, cheaper, cheaper. By letting near slave labor produce stuff everone on welfare can afford a big new HDTV now. Aren't we just reaping the rewards of outsourcing all manufacturing to somewhere with no standards and shoddy practices? Yup, some stuff isn't going to be quite as good as the real trademarked, copyright blessed stuff manufactured elsewhere. Too bad.
You voted for the lowest price and Froogle isn't showing things rated by where they are made or quality. You can sort by price. If price is your only measure, you get what you pay for.
I notice a very poor and typically Eastern usage of our language. Even though the only supposed locale for this place is in NY, I wouldn't put it past the place to be a Chinese-run hackshop, given the company name and the grammar on the website. Shentech? C'mon now, the name alone raised red flags.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
IBM has a patent on nearly everything.
I have nothing in principle against replacement batteries. I have one for my IBM X31 in fact. But it is not labeled as IBM and somebody else takes the blame if it bursts into flames.
Mislabeling batteries will make them less reliable, since the manufacturers have a chance of getting away with it. Just look at this article: The manufacturer is not mentioned!
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Geez.
When I bought an extra cell for my tablet PC it came with no stickers, though the seller stated it was an HP battery. I wonder now if I'm not using a time-bomb from this company or another like it.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
If this submission be right, McDonald's should not have served drinks at any temperature which would have caused a bad scalding injury. The evidence is that tea or coffee served at a temperature of 65 C (149 F) will cause a deep thickness burn if it is in contact with the skin for just two seconds. Thus, if McDonald's were going to avoid the risk of injury by a deep thickness burn they would have had to have served tea and coffee at between 55-60 C (131-140 F). But tea ought to be brewed with boiling water if it is to give its best flavour and coffee ought to be brewed at between 85-95 C (185-203 F).[10]
Though defenders of the Liebeck verdict argue that her coffee was unusually hotter than other coffee sold, other major vendors of coffee, including Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts, Wendy's, and Burger King, produce coffee at a similar or higher temperature, and have been subjected to similar lawsuits over third-degree burns.[13] And moreover, it seems to me that the coffee had the right temperature (more so, considering that it was served at a drive thru which means people will indeed drink the coffee while driving over long distances): Home and commercial coffee makers often reach comparable temperatures.[14] The National Coffee Association instructs that coffee be brewed "between 195-205 degrees Fahrenheit [91-96 C] for optimal extraction" and consumed "immediately". If not consumed immediately, the coffee is to be "maintained at 180-185 degrees Fahrenheit." [15] I have always thought that such a suit is only possible in the happy suing USA.
Now, returning to the IBM case (and this main story subject), I really hope they sue these bastards as they are counterfeiting merchandise. This is a company trying to profit from a registered trademark (or name?) selling terrible products. IMHO these are the real pirates who should be punished with all the extent of the law
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
They also sell used and refurbished items as new. I ordered an ipod USB cable from them because the price was much cheaper than the competition. It worked, but it had grime and hair all over it. I emailed them to complain, and they sent me a replacement without hesitation. Practically an admission of guilt...it seemed.
Dear Sir / Madam:
...^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H
I'm writing to inform you of a fire which has broken out on the premises of
FIRE! FIRE! HELP ME! 123 Callington Road. Looking forward to hearing from you. All the best, Maurice Moss
Slashdotter, ID #101. UIDs are in binary, right?
Did they include said batteries with the laptops they sold? Or did they do their own investigation, purchase 12 batteries at retail, and then investigate them?
Shentech going out of business!
They sent me once a wrong graphics card (with fan) - totally different from the picture shown on the web (fanless) and the person on the phone had the nerve to claim that it's the same.
Must be a different dimension they are living in.
The real profits to be had comes from the ensuing distrust of third party batteries. Is a possible loss of laptop and data worth the $50-100 you can save? Also, I wonder if a laptop battery faked to look like it came from IBM is of lesser quality than one from a manufacturer not willing to go that far?
I used to do a lot of business with Shentech. Time was they stocked good gear. You could find the best parts in stock at one online store. Something happened; after building four machines (last one was a dual PIII machine) using Shentech stock exclusively I found they started to neglect keeping current with the sort of components I wanted (the usual home build gaming/poweruser sort of stuff.) I drifted away, found alternatives and haven't been back in many years.
Looks like they've gone way down hill.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
IBM doesn't expect to get a trillion dollars. They expect Shentech to suddenly close shop. And they expect to be able to point fingers at Shentech if some batteries with the IBM logo suddenly burst into flames. This is an admirable job of covering their ass whilst smiting counterfeiters. A perfect play from Big Blue.
I see your informative link, and raise you a pithy comment.
Why would anyone wanna buy a fake flammable battery? Is this some sort of novelty item like fake vomit?
-that Shentech manufactured novelty exploding laptop batteries (e.g. ones that were designed to catch fire)? ...No? Time to call up my patent lawyer!
-that the CIA/KGB/etc. might use an exploding battery to off some political enemy in the near future? Take that, exploding cigars and polonium are just so passe.
Damn -- I think I bought one of these. Any ideas on how to tell if it's fake? Should I demand a genuine replacement? Refund?
...will it break my spine and ribs?
New York is about as far east as you can go before being devoured by sea serpents.
Sorry, the "coffee=hot" parable is still correct.
You don't stick hot liquids between your legs.
You don't try to balance hot liquids on your gut.
You give hot liquids your full, undivided attention or you should NOT be handling them. If this means pulling the damn car over and walking in to get your caffiene fix DO IT!
There's also the "spilled it into clothing which holds it against your skin and continues to burn you" hot too. It's not like you get a peltier effect by dropping hot coffee on yourself.
And FTR, she sat in a pool of hot coffee for over a minute and a half (not three).
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I absolutely love their ironic tagline... "Shentech - Get Your Money's worth!
The general consensus among coffee aficionados is that the proper brewing temperature is about 200 F (Source, also Wikipedia). This was also the conclusion of another judgement in another lawsuit against Bunn-o-Matic on the same grounds (which was thrown out.)
Juicy tidbit from that link:
(Emphasis added)
Yes, coffee served that hot will do serious damage to human flesh in a short period of time. So will all sorts of properly prepared foods if consumed immediately after cooking.
Yes, many establishments and home brewers deliver tepid coffee. This is sad, but it does not make McDonalds a villain for serving properly prepared coffee (or, at least, coffee that's closer to properly prepared than other places.)
Yes, there are a lot of dipwads that complain to McDonalds after they've burned themselves by spilling coffee or drinking it too soon. McDonalds is not responsible for their idiocy.
In my opinion, the McDonalds case says very little about torts and tort reform, but quite a bit about our legal system in general.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
Sorry, the "coffee=hot" parable is still correct.
Not if the definition of "hot" that everyone assumes is nothing like how hot the liquid actually was. "Hot" is not binary.
You give hot liquids your full, undivided attention or you should NOT be handling them. If this means pulling the damn car over and walking in to get your caffiene fix DO IT!
I don't know anyone who actually treats coffee like that. Nobody treats coffee with their "full undivided attention", they walk around with un-covered cups all the time chatting with co-workers and what not and basically try not to run into anyone -- but even then they don't cautiously peer around every corner to make sure no one is coming. But based on what you are saying, the (pulling a number out of thin air) hundreds of thousands of people who drink coffee every day while commuting are knowingly putting themselves at risk of third degree burns and painful skin grafts.
Or, perhaps more plausibly, nobody actually considers a normal cup of coffee to be that serious of a threat, and everyone's "coffee==hot" equation does not apply for such high values of "hot".
Do you seriously walk around holding your coffee cup in two hands, blowing off anyone who attempts to engage you in conversation or otherwise distract your full attention from the danger in front of you? Or do you treat it like you would, say, a hammer, that would hurt like the dickens if you dropped it on your foot but you would hardly expect to hospitalize you? If the former, kudos to your caution, but you're completely abnormal.
There's also the "spilled it into clothing which holds it against your skin and continues to burn you" hot too. It's not like you get a peltier effect by dropping hot coffee on yourself.
Yes, that made the burns worse. What's your point, that she shouldn't have been wearing clothes? She still would have received third degree burns almost immediately. Maybe she would have only had to be in the hospital for four days instead of a week if she'd been wearing jeans instead of sweat pants. Maybe her genitals would have merely been badly scarred instead of requiring skin grafts.
Just about every coffee drinker has spilled coffee on themselves at some point. I don't know any who have been scarred as a result even if they spilled it on their pants, and I don't know anyone who was surprised that they were not seriously injured. A perhaps second degree burn requiring some aloe vera cream is about what any normal person expects.
The enemies of Democracy are
A quick check shows that they are offering 32 different types of IBM/Lenovo Batteries...
..." mark, 2 Different FRU part Numbers.
checking my Thinkpad battery... there's the IBM Logo, the "International Business Machines" Registered Trademark. the "Manufactured for IBM by
There's 5 Million dollars just for that 1 battery... PLUS any profits made
assuming that that's an average number of Markings that would be infringing... they're looking at 610 MILLION dollars in damages, PLUS whatever profits were made.
Lets not get into the power-bricks that they're selling too.
Yeah, IBM's out for blood, and bone marrow on this one.
I will not give in to the terrorists. I will not become fearful.
Lovely tidbit from their privacy policy: If you are not the kind of person who worries about being hit by lightning as you're crossing the street, you probably don't have to worry that your credit card number will be intercepted on the way to a secure Web site.
Actually, it's $1M per counterfeit MARK per TYPE, not per battery. For example, if they only sold one type of fake battery with 2 counterfeit marks on it, it would be $2M regardless of how many batteries were sold.
I bought a counterfeit Sandisk compact flash from these people.
They should be avoided like the plague. Hopefully, some zealous district attorney will go after them, if there is anything left after IBM finishes with them.
"You give hot liquids your full, undivided attention or you should NOT be handling them. If this means pulling the damn car over and walking in to get your caffiene fix DO IT"
;).
I personally think most people should give the control of a > 1 ton fast moving vehicle their full undivided attention, or they should not be handling them at all...
Don't drink and drive. Don't eat and drive. Don't chat and drive. Just drive and stick to your frigging lane dammit! If you're Michael Schumacher you can chat with the pit crew while you drive at 300+kph in twilight and do near normal F1 lap times, but most drivers aren't and can barely control their cars safely under normal circumstances, any increase in their cognitive load would badly affect their performance.
So what's the statistics on fatalities/car trip vs 3rd degree burns/McD coffee served? How many millions of McD coffee sold, and how many burns?
Maybe they should sue car makers for making stuff that's so much more dangerous than McD coffee
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
You are absolutely right and furthermore I'll add this little tidbit that you missed.
Liquid that hot mixed with the styrofoam/paper cup and plastic lid made for a disaster waiting to happen. The coffee cup and its lid quite literally began to melt and disintegrate under the heat. If she hadn't spilled it in her lap right then, she would have spilled it the next time she picked up the cup.
The
Now these are the sort of counterfeiters that governments should be focusing not: ones that affect the public and pose real danger to real people (unlike "copyright counterfeiters", who pose an imaginary risk to some business because they're too lazy/stupid/greedy/incompetent to update their business model to stay afloat...I think you know who I'm talking about).
On another note, shouldn't these guys be put in jail? Sure, a suit from IBM will put them out of business just as well, but shouldn't they also be thrown in the slammer for intentionally endangering the public?
It's not that hot because people drink it that hot. It's that hot because after the four creams and three sugars, people for some reason still expect a hot beverage instead of a lukewarm beverage. Dunkin Donuts pre-creams your coffee for you to your specifications.
IIRC, Two creams and what tastes like way too much sugar are assumed if you don't specify, a mistake I made once stating "regular" to mean that I explicitly didn't want decaf. I don't put cream and sugar in my coffee because it overpowers the taste, so it annoys me that I have to wait for my coffee to cool down because a bunch of mouth breathers want something to sip, but don't actually like coffee. If you want a drink with caffeine and sugar, get a soda. If you want coffee flavored milk, Eclipse and Autocrat have wonderful options which won't burn you.
Don't just drink a cup of coffee because you think it's the "adult" thing to do. Argh.
Everyone was incredibly stupid in that McDonald's case. From the restaurant, for serving coffee that's just inside the vapor dome, to the woman for using her crotch as a cup holder for a beverage she's frequently ordered, and which is consistently way too hot, to the other customers for demanding a beverage which has to be dangerously heated to still be enjoyable after they mangle it with condiments.
Was McDonald's stupidity worth hundreds of millions of dollars? The Circuit Court of Appeals seams to think not.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Dude, she was 81 years old. Why'd you have to go and mention her genitals.
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
Well, that depends. In my country it's a custom to make and serve tea and coffee with boiling water or steam only. So everyone knows coffee is damn hot here like 95C - 100C when you get it. And McD coffee is way cooler than this. Yet we have to see the nonsense - Coffee and pie are hot products evrytime we want to buy coffe from McD. Also it's common sense here not to dry your cat in the oven (even microwave).
Liquid that hot mixed with the styrofoam/paper cup and plastic lid made for a disaster waiting to happen. The coffee cup and its lid quite literally began to melt and disintegrate under the heat. If she hadn't spilled it in her lap right then, she would have spilled it the next time she picked up the cup.
Are you insane? McD's sells hundreds of millions of cups of coffee. You don't think millions of customers would have noticed something like melting cups?
The woman put the cup between her legs, took the lid off and spilled it on herself. Nothing melted, or was in danger of melting.
Flammable means inflammable?! Boy, what a country.
"Liquid that hot mixed with the styrofoam/paper cup and plastic lid made for a disaster waiting to happen. The coffee cup and its lid quite literally began to melt and disintegrate under the heat."
Polystyrene melts at 240C, which is well over twice the boiling point of water at sea level, so your claim is an excellent example of the phenomenon of rectal vocalisation.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
When I worked as a clinical engineering tech in a fairly large Ohio hospital, we had a problem with batteries for a GE monitors. We got some knockoff from one of our battery companies. The charging circuits in one of the knockoffs overloaded on the charger, and caused a fire in one of our storage rooms near the ER.
Infadel! How dare you blaspheme the Holy Sacrement!
Redundancy is good And also good.
I think this might have also happened to me, I just didn't put two and two together until I heard your story. I've ordered a few things from Shentech in the past (couple years ago) and had reasonably good service from them. Then one day I got a bill for a large shipment of t-shirts to an address in NY. I simply called up UPS and got them to dismiss the charges and forgot about it. I got a second bill a little while later but I just called a second time and I've never heard from them since.
It's utterly unbelievable to me that they would be doing this, especially if it's so easy to trace it to them through the address. I always thought they were a little shady, I didn't realize they were based in NY though. Seems most of the electronic retailers in that area are corrupt.
"I don't know anyone who actually treats coffee like that. Nobody treats coffee with their "full undivided attention", they walk around with un-covered cups all the time chatting with co-workers and what not and basically try not to run into anyone"
Yeah. People drink and drive, cell and drive, etc too.
Doesn't mean it's smart.
"But based on what you are saying, the (pulling a number out of thin air) hundreds of thousands of people who drink coffee every day while commuting are knowingly putting themselves at risk of third degree burns and painful skin grafts."
Not to put too fine a point on it? YEAH! Simply because they defy the odds and don't get hurt (or don't get hurt seriously) doesn't mean the risk is less real.
"Or, perhaps more plausibly, nobody actually considers a normal cup of coffee to be that serious of a threat, and everyone's "coffee==hot" equation does not apply for such high values of "hot"."
It may be plausible to you. IMNSHO, it's just wishful thinking.
"Do you seriously walk around holding your coffee cup in two hands, blowing off anyone who attempts to engage you in conversation or otherwise distract your full attention from the danger in front of you?"
I don't drink coffee. However, I've consumed very hot beverages beverages before. And yes, I either set them down, or use both hands until they cool down appreciably.
"She still would have received third degree burns almost immediately."
Maybe, but not to the extent she did. And, again, she sat in it for over a minute.
Moreover, with a less severe level of burning, she may not have required skin grafts.
"I don't know any who have been scarred as a result even if they spilled it on their pants"
So you have an anecdotal lack of evidence.
Lack of evidence is not evidence of lack.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!