Apple Sued an Independent iPhone Repair Shop Owner and Lost (vice.com)

Jason Koebler, reporting for Motherboard: Last year, Apple's lawyers sent Henrik Huseby, the owner of a small electronics repair shop in Norway, a letter demanding that he immediately stop using aftermarket iPhone screens at his repair business and that he pay the company a settlement. Norway's customs officials had seized a shipment of 63 iPhone 6 and 6S replacement screens on their way to Henrik's shop from Asia and alerted Apple; the company said they were counterfeit. Apple threatened to take action, unless Huseby provided the companies with copies of invoices, product lists, and a plethora of other things. The letter, sent by Frank Jorgensen, an attorney at the Njord law firm on behalf of Apple, included a settlement agreement that also notified him the screens would be destroyed. [...] Huseby decided to fight the case. Apple sued him. Local news outlets reported that Apple had five lawyers in the courtroom working on the case, but Huseby won. Apple has appealed the decision to a higher court; the court has not yet decided whether to accept the appeal.

Comments

Were they Apple-branded?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because otherwise, this is a criminal act *by Apple*.

Everybody should watch this:
Lessons from fashion's free culture - Johanna Blakley at TEDxUSC
It makes clear how pointless copyright is.

Excellent

[DaMattster]

I am always happy to hear when a small businessman stands up to big corporate bullies and wins. Apple has gotten greedy and it's good to see them get kicked in the balls once in a while.

This judge just won the internet today

[cloud.pt]

A quote from the Motherboard article, by the judge who ruled aainst Apple:

"It is not obvious to the court what trademark function justifies Apple’s choice of imprinting the Apple logo on so many internal components"

It is, although, obvious to Apple's marketing team: 90% of their revenue, including hardware sales and repair are due to branding appeal and not quality or technological appeal (despite it actually existing), and thus, Apple wants to protect that brand in every single way by printing it everywhere, and preventing repairs that might tarnish that brand (as they can be lower quality, but don't necessarily mean they are...).

The judge though, noted very well that this trademark/brand protectionism goes against basic rights of repair - Apple doens't own your phone after you buy it - and consequentially, it cannot apply their trademark rights OVER repair rights.

Ask a broken iPhone owner if he would rather have the screen repaired with the logo: he would obviously say he prefers to fake it, but that's his choice and his wrongdoing. Ask the same person he has to pay 300 to have the logo, or 30 bucks to get a no logo, fully-functioning screen, and the branding thing will go down the drain pretty fast. But obviously, since Apple does not produce nondescript versions of their spare parts, you will never have sub-300 bucks, official iPhone X screens and that's just the life for an iPhone buyer that doesn't want to break the law. I feel for you

Re:This judge just won the internet today

[ElizabethGreene]

>> As someone who has broken their Apple screen...more than once...I'll take the Apple repair.

As someone who has replaced a spouse's iPhone 6 screen twice* with sub-$30 eBay parts, I won't take the Apple repair. I'm not being a cheap; I'm being practical. The cost savings to do the repair myself exceed my hourly billing rate by a healthy margin.

The quality of the parts has been acceptable so far.

* Twice: Once when a waterproof case wasn't, and the second time when the phone went off a countertop onto a concrete floor.

Re:Counterfeit screen?

[iCEBaLM]

Here's a google translate of a norwegian article:

In the judgment, TÃnnesen writes that Huseby does not "use" Apple's trademark because he does not claim in his marketing or to customers that it is a matter of unused original parts. The logos that are applied to the parts can also not be removed without damaging the components, hence, sladding is the only way to hide the logo.

Since internal components are concerned, the logos will never be displayed to the customers, and the court found no reason to believe that Huseby removed the bill and took out the logos after the goods were cleared.

It is also a key point in the judgment that Huseby can not purchase original spare parts since Apple does not sell it to anyone other than itself and authorized workshops.

"sladding" doesn't make sense, but further up the article it talks about "blotting out" the logo. Anyways, I think the judgement was correct.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

So he is using stuff that other people already paid Apple for, doing a fix that Apple didn't get paid to fix.

Let us try a car analogy shall we? So lets say I go and get a used transmission for my car from a junk yard and have it installed in my Toyota. So I'm having parts replaced in my car using stuff that other people already paid Toyota for. I'm STILL paying for the used parts and I can put them in my Toyota if I want. Of course I don't expect Toyota to cover that under warranty, but if I'm getting that work done anyways, it was out of warranty to begin with!

It's not like the guy STOLE the parts from the old phones to install into a new phone, he acquired them in a completely legal fashion. Apple has no right for a cut of anything from this. Same as Toyota not having a right to a dime for me getting a used transmission dropped in my car.

Apple Should Lose

[JimSadler]

Imagine buying a Ford and being sued for using after market products on your car. That is exactly what Apple seeks on its products. The idea that a company can control a product after they sell it is absurd. You buy it. You own it. You do what you please with it! Maybe it is time for end users to sue when a product is made difficult or expensive to repair. A class action suit might be a real eye opener.