Chinese brands get constantly harassed by Apple lawyers in the US about patents. Now that China is an important market for Apple, I find it hard to feel sorry for Apple getting a taste of their own medicine.
Yup, used to work for HTC and some of the bullshit that Apple used to pull still pisses me off to this day.
Remember the whole "click on a phone-number launch dialer" patent? We pulled the feature in the US phones, following the letter of the law since we lost the suit(back when Apple was going for Mfgrs instead of Google).
Apple filed an injunction with Customs right as we went into a huge marketing push for one of our devices. We had millions of phones sitting on the docks while FTC "investigated". 4-5 weeks later it was found that we hadn't violated, Apple never paid any fines and we had a ton of pissed off customers who couldn't get phones.
Patent examiners don't have discretion. The special patent court (CAFC) is filled with patent lawyers that decide cases based on their own personal interest in a more expansive patent system. Except where the Supreme Court reviews their cases, they have total power to set precedents and those precedents always favor trolls over creators and innovators.
I've traded comments with those guys on reddit. They live in a completely different reality. And people said Steve Jobs had a "reality distortion field." He had nothing on those guys.
I'd have to do some search-fu in my reddit comment history. What I remember of it, is that the trolly-vagueness of patent claims is entirely necessary for the system to work as well as it does, and that the patent system is a well-honed machine essential to the proper functioning of our economy.
China is great in many ways, but it's IP / Copyright protection is abysmal and is used by the state as propaganda / propaganda control.
Portray China negatively in a film? Oh look, no sales the few theatres that are showing it have the scenes altered and of course don't pay royalties.
Neutrally portray China? Oh look about 1% of the royalties you were supposed to get.
Portray China positively? Blockbuster Chinese release. Unprecedented sales, collect nearly 80% of the royalties you were supposed to.
They have the same Real Politik handle on technology. They're not going to respect American Patents until it suits them. Not to say we're blameless; but if it is too asymmetrical I could see the west imposing levies to rectify the imbalance.
The US needs to set some ground rules with our Chinese rivals...
Start with requiring occupancy of all homes held by foreign nationals, trusts or investment groups, or you pay enormous property tax increases.
Then you require all US businesses selling consumer products to staff at least 1 US resident inspector for each stage of the supply chain from raw goods to finished product. If the host country doesn't like it, then you can't do business with that host country. This inspector may be called before Congress to answer personally (with jail time) for any human rights abuses not reported in the supply chain.
Yeah but the world is not a pretty place, at home we have monopolistic unicorns, and abroad we have unfair business practices... I'm not shedding any tears for Apple, screw'em.
Even if the US is a relatively "clean" place to do business today, when we were the up and coming upstart, we stole plenty of ideas from abroad, and even within: the whole reason synecdotal Hollywood is in literal Hollywood is, movie producers snuck out there from the East Coast so they could infringe on Edison's film patents and get away with it.
Relatively poorer economies are never going to sit by and let large foreign industries dominate their economies if they can do anything about it. And we shouldn't expect relatively poorer economies to have deeply embedded free market economists explaining the theory of comparative advantage to every populist politician.
> The US needs to set some ground rules with our Chinese rivals...
Unlikely to work. China knows what works in their country. I think the TPP approach where we just lay ground rules with people who actually respect us (ie: Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam) and try to get these countries to work with us instead of China... this is a better approach.
I mean, what is the US supposed to say to China? Stop doing things... in your country? That we don't like?
It's China's country. They can do whatever they want. Especially since US Companies are so enamored with the hope of making profits over there.
On the first point, can't that be achieved by the municipality which (presumably) also assesses those property taxes? That just seems like an issue of the city needing to not whore themselves out to foreign speculators in the name of growth.
On the bright side, I've heard from some realtors that the previously-common occurrence of Chinese nationals patrolling for houses to buy with cash has dropped off substantially in 2016.
Hmm I feel quite the opposite here. China has a, um, less than stellar record when it comes to prosecuting Chinese companies that engage in IP theft and patent infringement. But then they want to get high and mighty when the shoe is on the other foot...
"Own medicine?" Have you somehow missed China's bizarre and BLATANT copying and ripoffs of just about every single popular product on the planet for the last two decades?
I live in a third-world country, where it has become almost impossible to get basic stuff (tools, lights, everyday household items) that doesn't break down after a month thanks to cheap Chinese knockoffs shamelessly muscling every other company off the local market. Almost nobody wants to stock "genuine" brands.
Even if I wasn't an Apple fan I would be rooting for them here; they seem to be the only company big enough to fight back against China's crap.
"Almost impossible" may be a slight exaggeration in a few major cities here, but otherwise the frustration still holds true.
The worst part about this glut of Chinese products is that there's no one to complain to; nowhere to get customer support from, and you can't easily know who to avoid either because one company may make essentially the same thing in a hundred different guises with slight visual variation but the same lack of quality or safety control.
As for all the imitations, I don't even know why they do this. Why pretend to be a popular brand (sometimes with a slightly different logo and/or a typo in the name) instead of selling your own product and identity? Why make people the world over have to be consciously vigilant about avoiding Chinese imitations? What are they hoping to prove?
Back in the 80s and early 90s, "Made in Japan" became a synonym for quality and people sought out products with that written on them. China may have made their name globally relevant but to the general public it has become synonymous with shoddiness.
That's how design patents work in the USA, also. If you can get secret designs from a competitor and patent them first, you can then wait for the product to become popular and sue.
And design patents are not considered to require examination as to content in the USA. They're just approved if the forms are filled out correctly.
And if any part of the design of a product (even just one rounded corner on a $700 phone) resembles a patented design, you're entitled to 100% of the profit ever made on that product in the USA. China is nowhere near that shifty.
Is there a name for a logical fallacy where actions are claimed to be morally equivalent if merely their shapes are the same and regardless of the details?
- Atheists are "just as bad as" [insert religious group with millennia-old history of atrocities.] -- Just because they both try to convince you of something.
- Politician A is "just as corrupt as" Politician B. -- Nevermind that A just gave his cousin a job, while B gave away $500B in contracts to his sponsors.
Not hard to believe, but would it be possible to provide an example or two of Apple winning a patent claim in court via a ruling in China? I would find it hard to believe the for a valid claim that just because a company is Chinese that it would have any impact on a case in the America.
While not a Chinese company, I remember Samsung winning an ITC import ban of Apple products. Obama promptly overturned/vetoed the ban[1]. I do not doubt for a second that american institutions (especially the executive) do what is best for "American Interests"
I read it as, the Chinese companies (or their US subsidiary) get sued in US courts for US patents. With that reading, I'm not sure your request makes sense.
That's a rather imbalanced perspective. China has grown not through organic development and innovation, but through global, state sponsored, commercial espionage; and in a country where the state is inextricably linked to even the "private" corporations.
I'm no fan of Apple's ways sometimes, but it's like comparing a borderline unscrupulous business to an organized crime outfit.
It would not surprise me one bit if this whole "patent violation" is nothing but a sham to fool people like you into believing there's some legitimacy behind efforts to sabotage Apple taking over the market from Chinese firms / state control.
Quite condescending. Definitely not what I expect from a post on hacker news. There was no mention that these companies created Chinese knockoffs. On the other hand, I see it as a patent dispute by predatory companies.
>> Now that China is an important market for Apple, I find it hard to feel sorry for Apple getting a taste of their own medicine.
Even if the plaintiff is a patent troll, or merely an obscure company with a bogus patent? Even if this "patent tribunal" ruled incorrectly because of bias toward the domestic company? Even if the tribunal had been bribed by the company (pure speculation, but bribery is how you get things done in China's bureaucracy)?
I don't tend to have emotions one way or the other about these kinds of commercial and legal disputes, but corruption and patent trolling seems a lot more likely than big evil Apple stealing the innocent Baili Co.'s intellectual property and getting their comeuppance.
The big picture here is not whether this ruling is just. It's that China has protectionist impulses, and that if Apple is to maintain the kind of volume of smartphone sales that propelled it to its 2015 valuation, it needs China. And China may be inclined to throw up a bunch of nasty speedbumps in its way.
That said, there's plenty of value in Apple selling iPhones at the rate necessary to maintain the mostly saturated markets in the West, so don't get myopically focused on China.
The idea that China is doing anything that the US wouldn't is ridiculous, every country engages in this stuff the only difference how is complex the US, UK and other Western countries do it. China does it simplistically and obviously, but meh... every country does it, and Apple have been wrong to encourage this stuff to their advantage when everything comes around eventually.
Exactly, China's massive cheap labor force and emerging markets give it the position of "fuck you". China knows that first world TNCs want a piece of the pie and China is grooming it's domestic (see "state run") corporations to reap the benefits.
With design patents, you don't have to specify transitions or curve radii. It's enough to draw that the corners are curved. There is no examination of the content of design patents and lack of specificity is generally not considered a problem by the PTO and courts.
Samsung has been copying Apple to the millimeter, they have discovered a book with ways they should copy Apple, and they were spreading misinformation to the consumer like "Samsung makes the iPhone for Apple", or "it's like the iPhone, but bigger and better", and other BS.
Also, there is no problem in making a rectangular phone, but making the edges EXACTLY the same radius as Apple's? That ridiculous.
Samsung more than deserved what they got, from their advertising, where they attacked Apple users and offended them. For that reason, I will never buy a Samsung device, even if it's 100x better and 1/100 of the price of an Apple's (or everyone else) equivalent.
And their unilateral comparisons to Apple on their product announcements? Ahah, ridiculous!
I don't read Chinese and the patent isn't translated. Anyone have any idea what Apple violated? It's interesting, in a country where you HAVE to give up IP to competing companies to enter the market, that there can be any IP disputes - considering much of what Apple has done is directly copied into Chinese goods.
If that rule didn't exist, China would be a 3rd world economy still stuck making shitty goods.
Really not that true; meaning yes, China copies a lot, but so does everyone and being able to copy someone takes skill. Look no further that the American auto industry for a historical example of this.
1. China isn't and hasn't been third world by definition. It's second world.
2. Lots of E Asian countries with similar workforces developed without stealing IP. The strong arm tactics against foreigners are a way for the Chinese government to control local industries, not to grow them. It slows down economic development but keeps it under the thumb of the Communist Party.
Strange that this only has any effect in Beijing, despite the company being based in Shenzhen. Do China's lowest-level courts only have citywide jurisdiction?
If US patent decisions only applied to the location a suit was tried in, I suppose we'd have a lot fewer filed in East Texas.
Yet another cell phone patent dispute. Except for one thing: "Beijing" is not being used here as a metonym for "the Chinese government." It means Beijing. The city of Beijing, which apparently has its own intellectual property authority. Do other cities also have their own IP authorities? Apparently yes:
Civil enforcement of IPR in China is a two-track system. The first is the administrative track....Set up in the provinces and some cities, these local government offices operate as a quasi-judicial authority and are staffed with people who specialize in their respective areas of IP law. If they are satisfied with an IPR holder’s complaint, they investigate. The authorities can issue injunctions to bring a halt to the infringement, and they can even enlist the police to assist in enforcing their orders.
How about that? Cities can't award monetary damages, but they can order your product off the shelves.
China is not that different from the west in that respect in many cases. They are making massive strides in certain areas of renewable energy and other environmental issues because it started affecting the bottom line by a mix of costs to the economy (through public health issues and related) & international reputation (as far as that affects investment from outside) and uncertainty in the economy (due to predicted problems otherwise sourcing enough fossil fuels at reasonable cost in the not too distant future if things keep growing at the intended rate).
Companies and governments care when it costs them not to.
Apple will be able to appeal this and continue selling phones in the mean time. Pretty interesting regardless considering their investment in Didi last month to gain favor with Beijing.
Two possible takes are that this is either a low enough court that the judge had autonomy in his ruling and wasn't influenced by the investment, or Beijing is sending a message that the Didi investment will not grant Apple any sort of impunity going forward.
Anyone else see a resemblance to the 3gs, just a couple years slimmer? "Plastic rectangle with curved edges" is a design that Apple did forever ago (in smartphone time).
Apple opened a sapphire plant in Arizona in 2012-2013, then closed it when the plant failed to manufacture to Apple's quality standards. They're converting it reportedly into a data center.
Foxconn, Apple's primary manufacturing partner in China, is opening factories in India. It looks like Apple's trying to diversify away from its dozen or so Chinese factories.
Apple's talked about bringing more manufacturing back to the U.S., but so far apparently has not done very much of that, perhaps waiting until after the elections to see what the political climate is like in 2017 and beyond.
This seems to be true, and if true, it is a key insight to the eventual demise of Apple. (Possibly a demise in all but name.)
Apple's foundational competitive advantages over anyone else in the West lie in unique manufacturing and supply chain capabilities that largely reside in China now. Those advantages enable the marketing strategies.
The cheap labor is a dead-end under all scenarios.
Robotic manufacturing will eliminate most of those jobs within 10-20 years. China already has half a billion people with no jobs available to them, that are pretending to work as subsistence farmers currently. The labor will always be cheap, it's the politics that will become extremely expensive. Apple should get started on moving off of that labor while they still have the vast financial capabilities to do so.
Always good to see 100% completely neutral rulings from local arms of the Chinese government that are unconnected to personal interests and otherwise without blatant conflicts of interest.
Given the design diversity that we might see from a large number of small phone producers, it seems inevitable that Apple may have something in common with one of these phones. I wonder if you get to a point where you can't change your design for fear of infringement.
