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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."
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
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!
Yeah I wonder why they would want to ruin a company who produces counterfeit products with the potential to kill someone by abusing a brand name they have no right to?
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.
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.
Are you insane? $1Million is cheap, frankly, considering how incredibly damaging this could have been for IBM. With enough of these out there, IBM might have been facing a hundred different suits, half of them class-action, from all over the world. That says nothing for the positively massive loss of business they could potentially suffer as a result of a turn in public perception of their products. If just one of those batteries hit the laptop of, say, the CEO of a fortune 500, IBM could see millions in business go *poof* as fast at the battery burns.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
It's not greed. IBM doesn't want the money. They don't care who gets the money. You could burn it like leaves, right in front of them, and you couldn't get IBM legal to give less of a damn. Given their billing rates, you wouldn't WANT their legal team to put out a money fire. Cheaper to let it burn.
They don't want money. They want *blood*. This is "holy thunder of God Himself"-level wrath, possibly because this is the first *American* seller of counterfeits they've been able to get their yellowed claws on. That I've heard about, anyways. They're going to make an example out of him worst case, and best case they're going to make an example out of him and learn more about any US assets that can be linked to overseas counterfeiters.
Yahoo! Pipes are awesome. How awesome? http://pipes.yahoo.com/jesdynf/slashdot
Hey, if people want to buy third-party components like batteries, more power to 'em. Manufacturers will usually fleece you for things like replacement batteries, but you're reasonably assured that they'll work correctly. You can often find reasonably-priced third-party batteries that have higher capacity or other advantages, but you give up the peace of mind you get with the "official" replacement. Still, as long as the chance of failure isn't negligently high (which in this specific case might be true), I don't really see a problem with it.
Now, printing IBM on the products is a different story, and takes the batteries from "third-party" to counterfeit. It's also possible that Shentech bought from a shoddy supplier that gave them counterfeits, but the end result is the same.
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.
I'm particularly amused that they purchased 12... and THEN sued for $1m per sold battery.
Shentech is doing business in a location called "Flushing, NY". I'm not sure where that is in China, but I'm sure that Lenovo, headquartered in Beijing, might be able to find them.
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
The US Federal Courts will, I'm sure, be immensely sympathetic to the argument that they have no jurisdiction over Shentech, Inc. of 1513 132nd St., Flushing, NY 11356.
I would think the reason they're suing for $1M is so that it makes headlines, so that anyone who might otherwise be keen on suing IBM over their exploding batteries would then know who the real culprits are. They might get some settlement money, but it puts a big red "X" somewhere other than them (and rightly so), which will likely reduce the number of "mistaken" lawsuits they'll have to cope with. I heard once that the amount you seek in a lawsuit has less to do with actual damages, and more to do with how much noise you want to make. The more unreasonable the number, the more you're interested in screaming your point from the rooftops, rather than actually getting the money.
The world's only surviving livewriter.
First off the company is based in New York, USA not China. Sure they may have suppliers in China, but most major companies do. Next, the company was selling defective batteries and as previous posters have noted, they sold defective AC adapters too. For trademark and copyright infringement, think of it this way, theres nothing wrong with me making a website, theres nothing wrong with me putting ads on website nor is there anything wrong with making a search engine. However, if I get say gooogle.com, make it look like Google and put spyware and adware all over it and record people's searches, that is bad. As for quality people thought they were getting an true IBM battery they didn't think they were getting a battery that would explode, there are places all over the web that buy things in bulk or have deals with OEMs and can sell technology and computers for cheap, I am sure that 99% of the people thought this company was doing the same, when they got it, it had the IBM logo on it so they thought like most of us do IBM logo == IBM. That is what IBM is suing for, the fact that they mislead customers that they were getting an IBM battery, not some Explode-O brand battery.
There is no "disagree" moderation, and troll, flamebait and overrated are not valid substitutes
Geez.
Yes, very good, the article does indeed indicate that IBM is seeking $1 Million in damages per battery. Something you need to understand about damages is that they do not necessarily mean that 'X' number of dollars were removed from your hands.
The overall potential damage to IBM of this infringement would be in the hundreds of millions, if not the billions both directly and indirectly for years to come. Asking for massive damages is not unreasonable under those circumstances.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
RTFA It says $1m per counterfeit mark per type of item sold.
So, if they counterfeited 2 logos on each of 3 types of batteris, IBM is asking for $6M.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
These batteries could open IBM up to litigation, or could have, had they not been discovered. IBM are protecting their name, reputation, and business.
After all, a lawsuit from a single exploding battery could easily cost IBM more than a million dollars...
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]
Emphasis changed to point out why this is not a contradiction.
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):
Long distances is a reason to put the coffee in an insulated cup, not a reason to serve at a temperature so hot that it would physically damage you to actually put it to your lips.
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."
While I may be mistaken, I don't think "immediately" is meant to imply "straight from the brewer at 91-96 C" because that would cause 3rd degree burns to your esophagus. I would rather think it's meant to imply that if you aren't intending to drink any coffee at the time and are going to let it sit, that it should maintained at the high temperature to maintain the flavor, and still allowed to cool down before serving so it's possible to drink.
And I've seen people spill "hot" coffee on themselves before, and never have I seen them fall to the ground screaming where they had to be taken to the hospital to receive skin grafts, and I've never seen anyone treat their lidless cup of coffee as though that were a possibility.
I have always thought that such a suit is only possible in the happy suing USA.
Regardless of the merits of hot coffee, I just can't see this as an example of that, because "happy suing USA" to me has always meant "person sues for $CHA-CHING because of emotional distress or skinned knee", where this lady initially only tried to recover her medical expenses for an actual severe injury she received, and it was the jury who decided that McDonald's dismissive behavior warranted the large punitive damages.
There are many, many better examples as far as I'm concerned. Off the top of my head, a lady once sued her employer because she's racist and they made her work with black people and this caused her emotional distress.
The enemies of Democracy are
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
Didn't Sony already do this?
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
To counterfeiters: Prepare to be penny/asset-less.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
IBM will spend more money on this lawsuit than they get...
This is not about generic batteries, if Shentech sold "Ibm compatible" batteries
that melted and burned then Ibm would say "not our battery...not our problem". Plenty
of companies legitimately sell 3rd party ibm compatible batteries of reasonable quality.
Shentech was supposedly selling counterfeit batteries with ibm logos.
Its about
1) Protecting their public image
2) Protecting their trademark
3) Protecting customers who are trying to buy legitimate ibm sold/authorized products
Anyone comparing this to RIAA is a clueless moron.
IBM has spent 70 years developing a sqeaky clean reputation. Heck they even spent money
developing linux products. When ibm products malfunction because of ibms mistake they just
replace things free of charge.
They have enough problems with legitmate batteries made by sony
They deserve to put counterfeiters heads on pikes...these counterfeiters are potentially
injuring ibms customers.