Orient Expert Technology’s (OET) web page shows an interesting music player, which they call, ahem, their “IPOD Mini” (pictured at left). Orient Expert Technology Co., Ltd.(HK) has a manufacturing factory in Shenzhen City, China.

Although the “Click Wheel” of this knock-off doesn’t really scroll (it seems to use the thing, you click the upper half of the “wheel” to move up in menus and click the bottom half to move down), OET’s idea of changing the capitalization of select letters in the product name “iPod mini” probably isn’t going to cut it with Apple Computer.

An obvious rip-off of Apple’s iPod mini, OET’s “IPOD Mini,” seems to infringe on Apple’s trade dress protection which is governed by the same set of laws that protects unregistered trademarks, while also offending plain old good taste.

The OET “IPOD Mini” features a 4GB 1 inch hard drive, USB2.0, supports MP3, WMA, DRM WMA, and ADPCM, and features line-in recording, voice recording, multiple languages, a 4-minute anti-shock buffer, claims 12 hours playback time, and includes an FM Tuner and MP3 line-in encoding.

For those wondering, Apple has won similar cases in the past, for example, the original iMac and Daewoo/eMachines knock-off eOne. This iPod mini rip-off brings to mind Luxpro’s recent “iPod shuffle” rip-off, what they call the “Super shuffle” (see related articles below).

More information about the OET “IPOD Mini” is on their website here.

Related MacDailyNews articles:
iPod shuffle rip-off maker Luxpro’s Chairman: patents do not cover appearance – March 15, 2005
Apple moves to stop CeBIT presentation of Luxpro’s ‘Super shuffle’ iPod shuffle rip-off – March 14, 2005
Attention Apple Legal Dept: LuxPro debuts blatant ‘iPod shuffle’ rip-off called ‘Super shuffle’ – March 10, 2005