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DHS Seized Aftermarket Apple Laptop Batteries From Independent Repair Expert (vice.com)
Louis Rossmann says US Customs and Border Patrol seized $1,000 worth of laptop batteries, claiming they were counterfeit. From a report: Earlier this year, Louis Rossmann, the highest-profile iPhone and Mac repair professional in the United States, told Motherboard that determining "the difference between counterfeiting and refurbishing is going to be the next big battle" between the independent repair profession and Apple. At the time, his friend and fellow independent repair pro, Jessa Jones, had just had a shipment of iPhone screens seized by Customs and Border Patrol. Rossmann was right: His repair parts were also just seized by the US government.
Last month, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized a package containing 20 Apple laptop batteries en route to Rossman's store in New York City. The laptop batteries were en route from China to Rossmann Repair Group -- a NYC based repair store that specializes in Apple products. "Apple and customs seized batteries to a computer that, at [the Apple Store], they no longer service because they claim it's vintage," Rossmann, the owner and operator of Rossmann Repair Group, said in a YouTube video. "They will not allow me to replace batteries, because when I import batteries that are original they'll tell me the they're counterfeit and have them stolen from by [CBP]." CBP seized the batteries on September 6, then notified Rossmann via a letter dated October 5. Rossmann produced the letter in its entirety in his video.
Last month, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized a package containing 20 Apple laptop batteries en route to Rossman's store in New York City. The laptop batteries were en route from China to Rossmann Repair Group -- a NYC based repair store that specializes in Apple products. "Apple and customs seized batteries to a computer that, at [the Apple Store], they no longer service because they claim it's vintage," Rossmann, the owner and operator of Rossmann Repair Group, said in a YouTube video. "They will not allow me to replace batteries, because when I import batteries that are original they'll tell me the they're counterfeit and have them stolen from by [CBP]." CBP seized the batteries on September 6, then notified Rossmann via a letter dated October 5. Rossmann produced the letter in its entirety in his video.
To prevent this, you could just have the protection lasted as long as the product was being sold/supported by the company.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Companies like Apple use "intellectual property" laws to circumvent prohibitions on tying.
It's illegal to require me to buy my battery from Apple just because I bought my computer from them.
And what's happening here is even worse: trying to make it illegal for anyone to sell batteries for computers Apple wants their customers to replace.
It will also trickle down.
The CBP and Apple are wrong.
They are not counterfeit. They are what they say they are.
LR needs to lawyer up and sue.
Wasn't there a recent case in Europe with exactly the same situation?
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
You can't repair them
Same with Microsoft.
Same with Amazon
Same with all phone manufactures
Same with consumer laptops. (You can generally repair desktops and business laptops.)
http://progressquest.com/spoltog.php?name=Son+Of+Son+Of+DarkRookie
Apple should design cars, think of it.
-after a set number of fuel-ups, the performance decreases to save fuel economy
-after a set number of fuel-ups, the car can no longer function, because the gas tank is non-replaceable
-if the tires wear down, you must purchase a new car
-if the windshield wipers need replacement, just replace the whole windshield assembly
-refilling the wiper fluid will cost $250
-the floor mats are non replaceable
-if you blow a headlamp, purchase a new car
-if the remote keyfob battery dies, purchase a new car
This is the free market. It will correct.
What color is the sky on your fucking planet? Because it sure as shit isn't blue.
This is overweening government using rules created by regulatory capture to protect powerful entrenched interests.
It's most assuredly not anything close to being free market.
There are aftermarket batteries for vintage models that do not copy apples logo, such as the Rayovac ones for the original MacBook. The statement about batteries from demo machines running in stories is incredulous. Seriously suggesting that customers want repairs with batteries that have been trickle charged while continuously running, as would be the case for batteries from demo units, just fails Occam's razor. Story sounds like someone that is complaining after they got caught or at least should have done more research into their supplier.
Rossmann group recovered data from an iPhone my wife dropped in the water. Of course Apple was unwilling to help me, but Louis was! It's insanity to think that a product you purchase can be held hostage by a company for the entire time you "own" it. I'm done with Apple. They suck, a cancer in the tech arena. Tech is beginning to suck everywhere because of this type of bull$h1t. It's time for me to purchase a new car and I am actually considering purchasing a 1960's to 70's vintage restored vehicle to avoid all the nasty tech involved .. and I'm a IT professional!
How can they be official Apple batteries if Apple isn't selling them?
Do they morph into a different unit once it's certain for the universe that Apple won't sell them? Or do they keep the same design, dimensions, parameters, manufacturing line, hands of workers assembling them...?
Ezekiel 23:20
"How can they be official Apple batteries if Apple isn't selling them?"
Trivial: They could have been acquired while apple was selling them. Then they sat somewhere.
For example, there's fairly brisk trade in laptop parts for certain popular discontinued laptops (including Apple) where the replacement parts are being recycled from units. e.g. the screen from a unit with a dead mainboard, or the mainboard from a unit with a dead screen... i repaired my old clamshell macbook for years with genuine apple parts you could no longer purchase from Apple.
Counterfeit product is a real issue as well, to be sure. But it's overreaching pretty far to assume that just because apple won't sell you X that X is counterfeit.
The term commonly used for vintage car parts is "new old stock" (NOS).
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
The principle is "first sale." Once Apple has sold it, then the buyer owns it and can resell it.
If they're being produced on contract, and the contract ended and they have surplus units that have never been sold, those are "counterfeits" if they make their way to the market "somehow." What matters is when the rights holder sells the item.
The trademark doesn't tell you what factory it came from, it tells you which company placed it on the market.
Worrying about if it is functionally the same, that is a concern for fungible goods, not branded goods that trade on their mark.
The real problem with the story is the lack of clear facts about what the items really were; new or used.
Even "new old stock" is only legit if it was sold to a distributor who then warehoused it. It has to have been sold legitimately at some point to still be legit now. But once it was sold, they can warehouse it as long as they want.
You're not a lawyer, and your glib description of "illegal products" is nonsense. Even the legal expert cited in the original article wrote:
> “This strikes me as an abuse of trademark law by Apple,” he added, “one clearly designed to maintain its stranglehold over the repair market and, ultimately, to force customers to buy new hardware.”
So now we have a real legal expert who says that Apple marked products sold by Apple manufacturers to a third party are not an abuse of trademark law. Secondly laws don't cover products, so there's no such thing as an "illegal product", "illegal battery", "illegal gun", etc. There are violations of the law that people can do... such as violate trademark law, import laws, customs laws, which our heror here did not do.
Hero: The guy trying to service "vintage" laptops by replacing batteries in devices Apple and their "genius" people won't touch. NB: Apple has nobody on their staff with the IQ to be a genius.
BadGuy: Apple for using a US Government agency to help them promulgate their exclusionary practice of stopping 3rd party repair, even if it's for products they themselves refuse to repair.
Winner: Apple. It cost them nothing to do this.
Loser: Everyone using an Apple device that is either now or one day will be unilaterally declared by Apple to be "vintage" and non-repairable.
Please don't play lawyer on slashdot. Or anywhere. UPL is a violation of the law.
Ehud
You could go into a Gucci store in Italy, buy 10 bags and ship it to yourself, CBP will stop that shipment and claim itâ(TM)s counterfeit even if you show the original receipt.
I call BS on this one.
it would seem that it MATTERS if you mail to yourself for personal use or to yourself as a business, with intent for resale.
personal use is what seems to be the thing that breaks your assertion. can you cite that even personal use would mean the good you mailed to yourself are considered counterfeit?
similarly, your link talked about greymarket and many of us regularly buy (or bought) cameras that were greymarket and they most certainly did make it to BH, adorama, etc - and are not stopped at the border.
so, I call BS on this. personal use is OK and greymarket is NOT automatically illegal. Nikon would like to think so (and that's why I stopped supporting nikon) but its not ILLEGAL to import or sell greymarket goods, as long as its marked as such (ie, no US warranty or local post-sales support from the US support org)
You're welcome to try mailing 10 Gucci bags to yourself for personal use if you don't believe me. Hell, you don't even have to mail it to yourself. Just try to land in LAX with more than 5 new Italian bags. Even if you declared it and paid the duty on it, they're going to give you a hard time. I've had a friend had a box of returned merchandise get seized at LAX. His friend had a thrift store in some Asian country, bought items from here, but couldn't sell it and had him bring it back to be returned to the manufacturers here. Fully documentation on the shipment, CBP claimed that he intended to sell counterfeit merchandise and confiscated the items.
One of my ex-gf does graymarket import/export for a living. Generally depending on the port of entry and port of departure, you have 1% to 10% chance of inspection. If you're unlucky and your shipment gets inspected, you better have a license from the trademark holder for that shipment. What probably happened is Apple complained to CBP and Rossman's shipment was flagged for inspection. If it has an Apple trademarking on it and he didn't have a license from Apple to import, then his shipment is going to get seized.