
Apple is still trying to sue the owner of an independent iPhone repair shop - danShumway
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9kxzpy/apple-is-still-trying-to-sue-the-owner-of-an-independent-iphone-repair-shop-louis-rossmann-henrik-huseby
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deogeo
> At issue in the case is the definition of what makes an aftermarket part
> “counterfeit.” [..] the court decided that because the logos were not
> visible, Apple's trademark hadn't been violated,

Am I to understand that if a company plasters its logo in enough places so
that hiding it is impractical, they can make an end-run around resale and user
rights, and just call anything you do with their parts 'counterfeiting'?

~~~
kevin_b_er
Correct. This is a common abuse of intellectual "property" law.

Check this one out:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_S.A._v._Costco_Wholesale...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_S.A._v._Costco_Wholesale_Corp).

Corporations abuse these laws to restrict trade in goods already manufactured.

What you can see here is Apple's legal declaration: You do not own the device.
Apple does. Apple has the right to refuse sale of the device and you have no
recourse.

What you see is a fundamental attack on the notion of ownership. Do you own an
Apple device? Apple decides what you may do with it. Apple even apparently
decides who you may sell or give it to. Do you really own the device?

Even "buying" something doesn't really give you ownership of it, the
corporation still controls it. You are a serf. This is the how of the danger
of these intellectual "property" laws being misused against the public.

~~~
teh_klev
See also Tesco vs Levi's:

[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1403156/Tesco-loses-
battle-...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1403156/Tesco-loses-battle-to-
sell-cheap-Levis-jeans.html)

------
Someone
I think smaller entities should have the capability to repair smartphones, but
that (technically) is not the legal question here. Apple isn’t claiming the
shop doesn’t have the right to repair iPhones, it is claiming it sells
counterfeit screens.

Reading the text in that light, I have some questions:

 _”The screens are also not sold as an original but used as a refurbished,
compatible screen”_

For me, “refurbished” implies “original, but not new”, and “compatible”
implies “new, but not original”. What is it?

If the first, the shop should be able to show how it obtained refurbished
screens or old screens that it refurbished itself.

If the second, why do these screens have Apple logos on them?

(my _guess_ would be that they have Apple logos because they ‘fell of a truck’
near the factory that makes them for Apple, making them either _“100% original
counterfeit”_ or _“didn’t _quite_ pass quality checks counterfeit”_ )

 _”and were never advertised as official Apple parts and were thus not
counterfeit.”_

I don’t think that ‘thus’ holds. “Official Apple part” can also be (somewhat)
implied, for example if the seller calls himself an iPhone repair shop, and
never explicitly states the replacement screens are third party, or if the
shop

~~~
teh_klev
From the article:

 _His lawyer, Per Harald Gjerstad, said that the screens Huseby imported were
made of both original Apple parts and refurbished, non-Apple parts. The glass,
for example, is aftermarket._

So largely Apple parts, likely scavenged from broken phones, remanufactured
into working spares but using non-Apple parts. Doesn't sound like counterfeit
to me.

~~~
Someone
For me, that doesn’t make things clearer. _“refurbished, non-Apple parts”_?
Why wouldn’t the non-Apple parts be new?

I repeat: I’m all in favor of the right to repair, but this case is about
whether these parts are counterfeit, and, possibly on whether parts like these
can be counterfeit at all.

 _”largely Apple parts, likely scavenged from broken phones”_

That, IMHO, would change things, but I cannot find any statement that the
screens were _largely_ Apple parts, or that they were scavenged from broken
phones.

If either were true, I would expect the lawyer for the defense to explicitly
state that.

Disclaimer: It is hard for outsiders to make a good judgment on such cases, as
the devil is in the details, so you would have to read all the evidence, and
jurisprudence of similar cases. I didn’t even watch the entire video in this
article.

~~~
proto-n
probably the glass was replaced but not the lcd, making the part "refurbished"
and no longer "apple" (as part of it is now aftermarket)

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rasz
" Apple logos on the screen were painted over, and wouldn’t be visible anyway
to anyone who used a repaired iPhone "

what is perhaps more important: those Apple logos were printed by _Apple
itself_, because those are original refurbished screens. Apple accuses you of
importing counterfeits when you import ANY original Apple part.

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KangLi
Fuck Apple

------
throwayEngineer
Shame on who?

Apple? Or the customer for buying a product they can't use without braking
apples rules?

Who is committing the evil?

~~~
squarefoot
"Who is committing the evil?"

Whoever enforces such stupid laws. How many tailors have been sued so far for
repairing a top brand suit using normal cotton spools?

