Apple iPhones Found to Have Violated Chinese Rival's Patent (bloomberg.com)

Beijing's intellectual property regulator has ordered Apple to stop sales of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in the city, after it found that the design of Apple's iconic smartphone is too similar to a Chinese phone. The aforementioned handsets infringe on a Chinese patent for exterior design held by a company called Shenzhen Baili for its 100C smartphone. From a Bloomberg report: While the decision covers only Beijing, future lawsuits against Apple could take the case as a precedent, potentially influencing the outcomes of litigation elsewhere in China. Baili is one of scores of smartphone brands trying to cash in on the country's mobile boom. [...] "If the position by the Beijing IP office is upheld and Apple doesn't appeal further, then in theory they wouldn't be able to sell the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus," IP specialist Ted Chwu said. The iPhone 6, and iPhone 6 Plus were launched in 2014. What took them so long?

Comments

Interesting

[bondsbw]

I didn't know that China understood the concept of design protection.

Re:Interesting

[Winckle]

They feel differently when it's a Western company "violating" a Chinese company's patent.

Re:Interesting

[Lead Butthead]

The iPhone 6, and iPhone 6 Plus were launched in 2014. What took them so long?

The wheel of (in)justice turns slowly... unless someone grease the wheel.

Re:Interesting

[PopeRatzo]

Isn't a more interesting question, "How far has Apple fallen that they now have to copy Chinese designs?"

Re:Interesting

[slack_justyb]

They feel differently when it's a Western company "violating" a Chinese company's patent.

Exactly this, calling the Chinese Judicial system an actual Judicial system is playing extremely loose with what those words mean. I mean, there is justice, but about as much justice that could be meted out with weighted dice in place for actual judges, if the dice are weighted against you, you might as well hang it up and find out how to get your own set of weighted dice. More than likely Apple will pay whatever "operating cost" they need to pay and move on with their lives. More so, this is exactly how business as usual runs in China. There are certain "operating costs" that have to be paid before you sell something/build something/enslave someone there and failure to do so has you running afoul with the Judicial system.

This isn't Apple's first rodeo in the Chinese legal system and they're well aware of what needs to be done. Doing business in China is a balance of how much are you willing to pay off people and how much you stand to profit. The more you want to profit, the more of that profit you need to "invest" in the Chinese legal system. The Chinese don't see it so much as bribery as the do what they tend to call it "investments". People who sell products in China, need to be vested in the unique interest of China in order to sell their wares there. Or at least that's how the logic works that I've been explained. But I must say that it sounds like it would be dreadful to do business in that country.

Re:Interesting

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

The Chinese model wasn't invented until this year. Duh!

Re:Interesting

[kheldan]

I didn't know that China understood the concept of design protection.

They do when it benefits them to do so.

Re:Interesting

[Gr8Apes]

Actually, rounded corners not withstanding, that looks an awful lot like the 2007 iphone. And, iphones were already in manufacturing in June, 2014, so the design came earlier. It's much more likely that Shenzhen lifted the design from the specs sent to Apple's manufacturers.

Re:Interesting

[AmiMoJo]

I doubt the deliberately copied it, they just created an environment where companies feel that rounded corners are worthy of protection and litigation. Karma is a bitch, huh Apple?

Re:Interesting

[Solandri]

Doing business in China is a balance of how much are you willing to pay off people and how much you stand to profit. The more you want to profit, the more of that profit you need to "invest" in the Chinese legal system. The Chinese don't see it so much as bribery as the do what they tend to call it "investments". People who sell products in China, need to be vested in the unique interest of China in order to sell their wares there. Or at least that's how the logic works that I've been explained

It's actually the same reasoning used to tax corporations in all countries, except "us" and "them" have been reversed so most people now find the concept foreign (no pun intended). The corporation is able to conduct business in the country due to its social and legal system, so it needs to "invest" in the interests of that country by paying taxes.

It sounds like fairness when it's a corporation you don't care about (them) paying those taxes and you're the beneficiary (us). But when it's "your" corporation being forced to pay and someone you don't care about and whose legal system you have no say in (the Chinese) is the beneficiary, the same thing sounds unfair.

Re:Interesting

[AmiMoJo]

So it's basically like the US, where patent holders always sue in this one corrupt court that never seems to favour their foreign rivals, like Samsung. Got it.

Re:Interesting

[macs4all]

That's sarcasm, I assume.

No, Mr Cook, I'm being serious. Ever since the iWristwatch, Apple has had the stink of desperation on it.

I think Apple did the Apple Watch because everyone EXPECTED them to do it; not because they thought it was the greatest new thing ever.

The issue is not "Desparation", so much as "Having most, if not all, of the "boxes" checked already."

Honestly, can you think of another new CLASS of product that would fall logically into Apple's wheelhouse (or any company making similar products?) that anyone has come up with in the past 5 years or so? The Smartwatch is pretty much "it".

Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality is just now becoming sorta interesting. Rumor has it that Apple has been snapping-up talent in that area for about the past year or so.

But computer improvements in general (hardware-wise) have been slowing down across the board; same with mobile. It happens.

For example, when was the last big improvement in home entertainment systems? Product classifications and industries (and consumer tastes) change and mature over time. High-tech stuff is no different.

If Apple is desparate, it is because the entire industry is desparate.

If you can find me another company in a similar product-space as Apple that is truly burning-up the press with stuff that is more than just incremental improvements to existing products, that truly changes the way all similar products look and act, like the iPhone did for cellphones, or are truly a new CLASS of product, I'm all eyes.

Re:Interesting

[Tharkkun]

That's sarcasm, I assume.

No, Mr Cook, I'm being serious. Ever since the iWristwatch, Apple has had the stink of desperation on it.

Clearly you missed that Apple's phone was released almost 2 years before the Chinese manufactured phone. China copied it and waited until they had a product on the market and then banned the Apple version. That's how China works. They copy, copy, copy and keep copying and when their shit copies aren't being purchased they outlaw the foreign competition by banning or suing them.

Re:Interesting

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.

You have misquoted Emo Phillips. The correct quote is: "Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps."

That's entirely possible. However, it is also possible that he is misquoting me, since I have been using that tagline since the days of logging into BBSs using Telix on a 286 in the late 80s. I am sure that I copied it accurately from the guy I swiped it from, because my tagline management program was really good at that.

What took them so long? Simple

[Shoten]

It took them that long to file the patent...once the iPhone 6 was released.

Let's face it: "Chinese Intellectual Property Law" is an oxymoron.

Missing Steve

[RogueWarrior65]

If Jobs were still alive and at the helm, he would tell the Chinese to go pound sand.

Re:Missing Steve

[goose-incarnated]

And they'd reply

"Good artists copy; greate artists steal".

Besides, Apple's stance towards patents on appearances is well-known (see the rounded corners debate). If some legitimate court finds that the specific iPhone appears too similar to the 100c, what's Apple going to do? Complain that patents on appearances are bullshit?

Meh...

[drew_92123]

Apple will simply assert that they were copied, do their best to prove it... and if they lose they just appeal after having a back room meeting with somebody that matters advising China that they are more than happy to take their production elsewhere if somebody doesn't step in and make this little problem go away.

Trump's master plan

[ChunderDownunder]

Chinese company sues,
Apple onshores factories.

Re:What took them so long? Simple

[goose-incarnated]

It took them that long to file the patent...once the iPhone 6 was released.

Let's face it: "Chinese Intellectual Property Law" is an oxymoron.

Their phone was released 6 months before the iPhone. Unless you think that they invented time-travel, the odds are that their design was completed long before the iPhone in question was released.

Re: Pics or GTFO

[Samantha Wright]

Embrace, exploit, excommunicate. Why bother with prior art when your government is so corrupt? Just imitate, register, and sue, like with the handbag company that won the right to rip off the iPhone name. They didn't come up with it, but because foreign companies will apparently always be treated like garbage in the Chinese IP framework, they now have control. This process will probably continue until Apple gives up and starts avoiding China altogether, or, like the software companies that can't get licensed because of protectionism, greed, and probably racism, license everything to a Chinese company at a massive loss. There's no way the Baili 100C was designed in ignorance of past iPhones.

The Real Issue

[brwski]

The real issue is probably something utterly unrelated. Beijing is simply using this as leverage to get something else out of Apple that they want (which is probably an end-around when it comes to encryption). It's all about the long game.

Re:What took them so long? Simple

[XxtraLarGe]

Their phone was released 6 months before the iPhone. Unless you think that they invented time-travel, the odds are that their design was completed long before the iPhone in question was released.

Yeah, it probably was, but can you say that these two designs really resemble each other?

Re:Live by injustice, die by injustice

[Anonymous Coward]

Samsung is full of it though. They have a home market where they are one of only two major brands that have their toes in everything. The foreign market they are lucky if they grab 10% of it an any country. So a patent claim by Samsung against anyone acts to shut the competitor out of their home country and does little in foreign countries since it takes a stupid amount of money, time and lawyers to fight essentially the same patent in every country that has different patent filing times and rules.

China and Chinese companies on the other hand just rip off western companies by "partnering" with them, and then 5 years or so into partnering, all the counterfeits of their products push them out of the market. Ask how well all other Smartphone brands are doing in China, the answer is Apple is the only one that is even selling among all the cheap poorly built chinese phones. Samsung and LG are considered too expensive and aren't luxury products, so they've experienced drops of 39% and LG doesn't have any significant presence. The #1 Phone brand in China is Xaiomi, with Huawei and Apple tied for second. Huawei you might recognize as the "free" cell phone that carriers in the US and Canada hawk because it's super-profitable to sell disposable phones.

Nobody else can produce an "Apple iPhone" because the software ecosystem is effectively closed, and the app store ensures that counterfeits can't be loaded with legitimate software. Apple can actually survive in China's market by making sure the OS doesn't make it onto counterfeit devices and producing their own CPU/GPU parts.

This is why Open Source isn't always the best thing. Open Source when dealing with countries like China just results in "Steal me faster", If Android wasn't open source at all, the chinese smartphones wouldn't even have a chance. Tizen is the most popular smartphone OS in India and if Android wasn't such garbage, probably would be the OS of choice worldwide.

Android effectively replaced Symbian, and drowned all the other Mobile OS's in the bathtub except iOS which had the first mover advantage. Which is to say Microsoft originally had the first mover advantage and then fell down the stairs and broke it's neck.

Re:What took them so long? Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

They look about as much alike as the models in the Apple v Samsung design lawsuit, which eventually resulted in Samsung owing Apple $400M+.

Karma

[SmaryJerry]

The shape of the iphone 6? Insane. You mean a rectangle with rounded corners? This sounds like karma for apple suing others for using icons with rounded corners.

Re:What took them so long? Simple

[macs4all]

what probably happened is apple did what they usually do, work with foxconn to develop the next models. someone at foxconn took early drawings and gave them to another company who actually got a barely-similar model out to market before apple's fairly predictable development cycle could.

and a patent ruling that only affects ONE CITY? wtf is what? that itself sounds like a sham. imagine imagine if all the rulings in east texas only applied in east texas district....

That is EXACTLY what happened. I would bet anything on that, knowing how Chinese "product development" works.

Looks like patent troll...

[seven of five]

Affected company apparently has no website, phone, or email.

Claims Violated

[PPH]

1. A portable communications device: Where said device is manufactured by child and prison labor.