
Apple iPhones Found to Have Violated Chinese Rival’s Patent - bcg1
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-17/apple-s-iphones-found-to-have-violated-chinese-rival-s-patent
======
patrickaljord
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.

~~~
ryao
Is it possible that the 100C was based on iPhone 6 mock ups that leaked and
the Chinese company copied it to get it to market first?

This would not be the first time this happened:

[http://www.androidauthority.com/goophone-sue-apple-
china-112...](http://www.androidauthority.com/goophone-sue-apple-
china-112190/)

~~~
WildUtah
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.

------
aetherson
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.

~~~
buro9
> It's that China has protectionist impulses

So do US juries, hence the Apple lawyers continually referring to Samsung as
Samsung Korea.

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/as-4th-trial-
near...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/as-4th-trial-nears-
samsung-asks-judge-make-apple-stop-talking-about-korea/)

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.

~~~
OedipusRex
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.

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zdw
"Design Patent", aka some look and feel thing that is stupidly vague.

I seem to remember in the Apple v. Samsung case there were several of these on
concepts like "a rectangular phone form factor" or similar...

~~~
SlashmanX
Rectangular with curved edges I think was the issue there.

~~~
nv-vn
Effectively the same thing considering the fact that a perfect rectangle would
be impossible to make.

~~~
WildUtah
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.

------
BFatts
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.

~~~
analog31
Where did you find the patent? If it's anything like a US design patent, then
you should be able to learn a lot just by looking at the pictures.

~~~
mkagenius
He is perhaps referring to what the court's ruling said -
[http://www.bjipo.gov.cn/zlzf/zfjggg/201605/P0201606093729650...](http://www.bjipo.gov.cn/zlzf/zfjggg/201605/P020160609372965002381.pdf)

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bydo
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.

~~~
Steko
China has different IP regimes at the city level. Haha.

[http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/06/china-has-
whol...](http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/06/china-has-whole-lot-
intellectual-property-authorities)

 _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:

{quotes: [http://www.chinabusinessreview.com/enforcing-intellectual-
pr...](http://www.chinabusinessreview.com/enforcing-intellectual-property-
rights-in-china/)}

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. _

------
josteink
Play the patent game and you are bound to lose in the end, with no high tower
to go preaching from about how _their_ patents are trivial.

That said, I'm sure apple can afford to pay or lawyer their way out of this.

~~~
NEDM64
Tough luck you.

Apple wasn't barred after all...

------
lujim
When did China start caring about intellectual property?

~~~
duckfruit
When it started applying to Chinese companies

~~~
chillacy
Which seems to add evidence to the case: you care about IP when you have much
to lose through copying, you disregard IP when you have much to gain by
copying:
[https://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20130228/0...](https://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20130228/01324622146/yes-
us-industrial-revolution-was-built-piracy-fraud.shtml)

------
DenverR
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.

------
wlesieutre
[http://g04.a.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1qM3iHFXXXXayaXXXq6xXFXXXn/221...](http://g04.a.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1qM3iHFXXXXayaXXXq6xXFXXXn/221820712/HTB1qM3iHFXXXXayaXXXq6xXFXXXn.jpg)

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).

------
html5web
You planted the trees, now enjoy your fruits!

------
1024core
It's all about protectionism.

Apple should threaten to move the manufacturing of the iPhone out of China,
laying off 100s of 1000s of people.

~~~
OedipusRex
And lose all that cheap labor? China knows that threat would be empty.

~~~
adventured
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.

------
ianai
Any evidence that this isn't a state-ran "company" claiming Apple infringed on
something it copied from Apple?

~~~
lallysingh
I think that losing that gigantic Apple manufacturing contract would be
undesirable for the state.

~~~
samfisher83
The infrastructure to make iphones at the scale they do doesn't really exist
anywhere else.

~~~
lallysingh
There's already a shift to robotics in chinese manufacturing, you can put
those robots in another country:
[http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36376966](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36376966)

~~~
samfisher83
The robots are already there. You are going to have move the robots setup the
infrastructure etc. You need reliable power, transportation, etc.

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foxhedgehog
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.

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rdlecler1
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.

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odbol_
Garbage article, doesn't even give details on what they violated.

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jsmith0295
The U.S. should probably restrict companies from complying with Chinese IP
laws until they respect ours.

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baldfat
Oh the irony.

