
Chinese company uses leaked photos to copy, patent iPhone 5 design - velodrome
http://www.bgr.com/2012/09/05/iphone-5-design-copied-patented-goophone-i5/
======
mrich
I would not say this for any other company, but Apple somewhat deserves it.

~~~
onetimeuse001
For re-inventing the smartphone back in 2007 and for not wanting others to
clone the best features?

~~~
kitsune_
Innovation and inspiration, patented by Braun [1], errr, I mean Apple.

[1] <http://visual.ly/braun-or-apple>

~~~
digitalengineer
A false comparison that was debunked some time ago, even by the Braun lead
designer: "I have always regarded Apple products — and the kind words Jony Ive
has said about me and my work — as a compliment. Without doubt there are few
companies in the world that genuinely understand and practise the power of
good design in their products and their businesses".

"I very much doubt there is a single designer at Apple who has felt flattered
by Samsung. And, on the flip side, I doubt there is a single designer at
Samsung who sees their work as homage to Apple. "
<http://daringfireball.net/2012/09/homage_vs_ripoff>

~~~
zerostar07
The fact that Dieter Rams is flattered doesnt make it a false comparison, au
contraire, it means he sees obvious "influence". Also how can daringfireball's
opinion be considered an unbiased source.

~~~
enraged_camel
Influence is not the same thing as imitation.

~~~
zerostar07
These lines are for courts to decide (I didn't know the braun radios myself,
but the iPad and the iPhone calculator seem pretty much imitations)

In the end, depending on the financial damage at stake, some people will sue,
while others may be flattered.

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jrmg
Sad to see this is the top HN story. The fact that this seems to be being
taken seriously here is crazy. Obviously, a patent of someone else's design,
no matter how it was come by, is not a valid one.

[Decline of HN, jumping the shark, get off my lawn etc.]

~~~
josteink
I see it as the the cult of Apple's totalitarian grip on HN-discussion finally
letting go.

It's already a few years past due.

~~~
Uchikoma
When was that? Could you quote some threads from the past that display
"Apple's totalitarian grip on HN-discussion"?

~~~
josteink
Sorry, but I don't feel like hunting specific threads.

I just remember back in the days (before I quit HN and then later rejoined)
people would get down-voted to heck for speaking against Apple, people would
get slow-banned and people would get stern emails from PG if they spoke too
crossly against Apple when Apple did all the questionable things Apple
constantly does.

You take my word for it or not. I think it qualifies as "cult of Apple's
totalitarian grip on HN-discussion".

~~~
Uchikoma
Ah anecdotes, the facts of the internet. I'm only 1135 days here, this must
have happened before my time on HN. Wished I'd experienced the "stern emails
from PG".

"You take my word for it or not."

Well, not. Sorry, too much science education to think anecdotes are relevant
in any way.

~~~
Karunamon
So are you calling him a liar or not?

~~~
enraged_camel
Well, josteink refused to show any evidence, so why should he be taken
seriously?

~~~
Karunamon
That isn't what I asked. Either you think he's lying and need to call it out
directly and state your reasons why, or you don't.

Difficulty: "Because he didn't provide evidence" is not proof of deception.
Either what he's saying did happen, or it did not. Dismissing something as
anecdotal only matters in scientific discussions about statistics, notsomuch
real life. If we followed such rigorous rules for everyday discussion, nothing
would ever be talked about.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>Either you think he's lying and need to call it out directly and state your
reasons why, or you don't.

False dichotomy. Lying implies the intent to deceive, which he may not have.
He may simply be remembering things incorrectly, or viewing past events
through a reality distortion field. This is why anecdotal evidence is utterly
meaningless in discussions like this: when you are making statements about
"the way things used to be" you need to provide actual evidence supporting
those statements.

------
Cushman
Hilarious as this is, it's a bit baffling that so many people seem to think it
"serves them right" when in fact it makes the perfect case for why design
patents exist.

If you're the sort of person who thinks a rounded rectangle shouldn't be
patentable, this should annoy you.

------
olalonde
Their fake iPhone (Goophone Y6) apparently retails for 250$ USD.
<http://shop.goophone.hk/product-28.html>. I suspect the quality is pretty
bad... Also, Google apps such as Maps, YouTube, etc. might not be available
since they require a license from Google. I'll try to get a hand on a sample
this weekend if I pass by Huaqiangbei (mostly out of curiosity).

~~~
dutchbrit
And that one obviously does break Apples design patent. Apple could easily sue
them over that.

~~~
gst
Apple does have a design patent in China?

~~~
fpp
...and judges to enforce it?

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kumarm
So they did an apple on apple itself? :) [Yes I know its extreme but Apple is
a company that sued MOTOROLA inventor of cellphones with cellphone patent]

~~~
rimantas
You got your facts mixed.

------
devsatish
People defending GooPhone and making stupid comments about Apple? I agree
Patent system's kinda broken. But if this is real, is real stupidity and
height of IP theft.

~~~
yarrel
How do you steal IP? Has someone broken into the patent office and rifled
through the filing cabinets?

~~~
regularfry
Technically it _is_ possible to steal a copyright, by falsely claiming to be
the owner. I presume you could do something similar with a patent.

------
dutchbrit
On the subject of Chinese phones, check out the Mi Two.

<http://www.xiaomi.com/mi2>

Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064 Quad core, 1500 MHz, Krait Adreno 320 2GB
RAM

Pretty impressive, especially for the price.

~~~
darklajid
These guys are pretty well known for running a very polished custom ROM as
well, MIUI.

Ran it on my devices until 4.x was (kind of, not really, in a crappy way)
available. If you have an older android handset which won't receive any future
upgrades: Might be worth checking out these guys.

~~~
tsahyt
Same here. I ran it until my device (HTC Desire Z, T-Mobile G2 in the US) was
discontinued by the MIUIAndroid folks.

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dexter313
[http://img03.taobaocdn.com/imgextra/i3/101108915/T2dGR5XhBXX...](http://img03.taobaocdn.com/imgextra/i3/101108915/T2dGR5XhBXXXXXXXXX_!!101108915.jpg)

The last picture on their website...

------
Mordor
Would be interesting to hear if they can ban Apple's _exports_ from China.

~~~
tsahyt
That would in fact be pretty devastating for Apple I believe.

~~~
gurkendoktor
Depends on how fast Foxconn builds new facilities in Vietnam.

~~~
protomyth
They are already in Brazil.

------
chmike
As far as I know, design can't be patented. It can only be a matter of
authorship and thus copyright. Apparently there seemed to be some confusion
about this in the Apple vs Samsung case. Maybe it is only the media that is
making such type of confusions.

The problem with China is that its legal system is told to have a strong bias
in favor of Chinese companies/people.

I expect such situations might incline countries to retaliate in the same way
and on similar basis instead of fixing the patent system.

~~~
jkn
There is a category of patents called "design patents".

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent>

In Apple v. Samsung, Samsung was found to infringe some of these, see e.g.
[http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/08/ban-this-apple-
lists-8-...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/08/ban-this-apple-
lists-8-samsung-devices-it-wants-kept-out-of-the-us/)

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ewang1
LOL, the goophone website even tell consumers to avoid getting a fake goophone
and to report all fakes...

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Loic
Maybe the best demonstration of how broken the patent system is.

~~~
notatoad
Except this is the Chinese patent system, not the American one. Both systems
are broken, but in entirely different (and opposite) ways.

~~~
maximveksler
What do you mean? Could you please highlight the attributes of the Chinese
patent system?

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tomflack
Seems like a slam-dunk leaked photos = prior art.

~~~
ukoki
...if only Chinese courts cared about such obtuse concepts as 'facts' and
'logic'.

~~~
sebastianmarr
What is your experience with Chinese courts regarding patent cases? Any
sources?

~~~
ukoki
I live in China. A friend of mine was recently assaulted in a bar. Family of
the perpetrator came to the hospital with the policeman assigned to the case
and pressured my friend to accept money in lieu of pressing charges. Depending
on how much 'guanxi' the perpetrators family have, if he does press charges,
documents and evidence may get 'lost' and my friends employer could get in
trouble with the local government, lose it's license etc. Although I can't
talk about patent law, I know there are really no 'laws' in the city I live in
- everything is negotiable and rests on how much you can spend and what your
standing is with government officials. I love living here, but China is a
mafia state.

~~~
sebastianmarr
Thanks for your insights.

------
Monotoko
Can anyone translate this? <http://www.goophone.hk/> \- I've noticed they
mention iPhone 5 on the actual site! Also, it looks like it's Hong Kong, not
China (different rules to play by)

~~~
luke_s
I just got my wife (Taiwanese) to read it, and she translated the red block of
text. She wasn't very clear, but it says something along the lines of:

"Beware of imitation products. The genuine goophone has a 'small bee' logo. If
you see any phones with a similar design to the goophone but without the
'small bee' it is an imitation. Report counterfeit products by calling
0755-88877119"

I've been laughing for the past 5 minutes ...

~~~
felipemnoa
And thousands of people will call to report a counterfit product with apple in
it instead of the 'small bee'.

------
Mitt
This whole thing is a difficult issue. Who is to decide what devices look
similar enough, to deserve calling it a “copy”? In principle what we do here
is: we implement a neural network for object recognition, and train it to
recognize a certain device. Now we run this classifier on other devices and
need to settle for a confidence value which says if a device is a copy or not.
But who should decide what exactly this confidence value should be?

For example, what if we decide to say that a 0.921 value means a device is a
copy, and we find out that Samsungs older devices get a 0.884 confidence?

All those values are very artificial.

~~~
batista
> _This whole thing is a difficult issue. Who is to decide what devices look
> similar enough, to deserve calling it a “copy”?_

Here's a guideline: if there is a document in your company saying ("let's copy
this thing") --as in Samsung's case--, it's a copy.

Or if you created your design from leaked photos of prototypes ("as in this
case") --it's a copy.

For the rest, how about a "jury" (i.e impartial to both parties common
people)?

~~~
Mitt
Even when we directly say “We’ll copy it!”, it could still come out as having
the classifier outputting a small confidence value. So, in my opinion this
should not count. There should be a confidence value of a neural network
involved.

In the case of a real copy, the classifier should have a confidence of 1.0, or
be enormously close to it.

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1gor
What goes around comes around.

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PeterLiddiard
"... the company has actually patented the knockoff design in China and is
poised to sue Apple if it launches the next-generation iPhone in China later
this year."

Take that, Apple!

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s3b
live by the sword, die by the sword ?

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stretchwithme
As if Apple didn't already file the same patents. As if the leaked photos
aren't already prior art.

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krigath
"... the company has actually patented the knockoff design in China and is
poised to sue Apple if it launches the next-generation iPhone in China later
this year."

Seems like the Apple vs the rest of the World patent war is taking on new
heights...

------
progrock
You better watch out for the skin deep.

The best rebuttal Apple can make to any of this, is to polish their OS and
their core apps as much as possible. It's ropey software that takes the polish
away from supposedly glamorous devices.

------
dayjah
I'm so tired of these stupid phone patent wars. Is there a realistic solution
to this or will it just phase out and be replaced by the next rebecca black-
esque tech-reporter-BS?

------
deepGem
I'll be surprised if Apple has not patented iPhone 5 in China by now, their
second or third biggest market.

------
pasbesoin
'First to file' FTW. /snark+depression

------
Axsuul
How serious does the Chinese government actually take copyrights? =p

~~~
BostX
Copyrights well... it's like you make up some deals (in your western family)
and then you go somewhere else (to the east) and ask people there to live by
your deals. Because you see yourself as the One everybody must follow. And it
works as long as you have a (military) might to protect your interests. BTW
this is the principle how any legal system works, all over the scale from a
family law to international law. And now imagine yourself loosing that might:
two lost wars, economic crisis... well, deals made up by clowns have never
been taken seriously.

