“When a Beijing regulator recently ruled against Apple Inc. in a patent dispute, it handed a victory to a Chinese company that barely exists,” Eva Dou and Alyssa Abkowitz report for The Wall Street Journal. “Phone calls to the company, Shenzhen Baili Marketing Services Co., ring unanswered. Its websites have been deleted. Visits to its three registered addresses found no company offices.”
“When Baili took on Apple in December 2014, telling Chinese regulators that the Cupertino, Calif., company’s new models infringed on its smartphone design patents, it had bold aspirations, a big-name investor in Chinese internet giant Baidu Inc. and a team of experienced executives,” Dou and Abkowitz report. “By the time regulators reached a decision this year, Digione had collapsed, brought down by buggy products, mismanagement and fierce competition, according to former employees and investors. Digione has been absent from China’s mobile-phone market for at least a year and Baidu has accused it of squandering its investment.”
“Digione, whose formal name is Shenzhen City 100/100 Digital Technology Co., and Baili are both insolvent, their debt exceeding their total assets, according to the companies’ annual financial reports,” Dou and Abkowitz report. “Emen Zheng, a consultant who had been hired by Digione to set up its e-commerce platform… and other former employees said the lawsuit with Apple was always more a marketing ploy than a serious court case, and that given the inherent limitations of smartphone design, many devices now share similar physical features. ‘In truth, there are other smartphones that look more like the iPhone 6,’ said Mr. Zheng.”
MacDailyNews Take: Again, it’s either a shakedown or stupidity because there is no infringement. If Apple’s iPhone infringe on Baili’s, then virtually every smartphone introduced since the iPhone debuted in 2007 infringes on Apple’s design patents.
Lol with The Chinese always with serious problems of identity thinking in rest of foreign companies break in law in copyrights but they can breaks the rules every where in the world…….
Nice and simple, Frank.
Some scumbags are Chinese, so all Chinese are scumbags.
The US is #1, so the US has no scumbags.
Nice job on the political/social/economic analysis.
No sensible person would have made the same interpretation as you, Sean.
Why don’t you do the world a favor an print the names of the Chinese plaintiffs, Chinese governmental, bureaucrats, Chinese judges, and Chinese members of the jury (if any) involved in this case so we can all feel better, asshole.
From what little I can gather about the creation and release of the Baili 100+ 100C phones, their patent was based on images of the iPhone 6 that had been leaked at the time. The patent was approved before the iPhone 6 was released by Apple.
Does this make sense? Does anyone have better data?
Thoughts:
– Steve Jobs was of course right to keep everything Apple as secret as possible until public release date.
– Apple’s moving manufacturing to China: Criminal Nation of course destroyed any chance of secrecy.
– What we have here is yet-another crooked Shenzhen company ripping off Apple, but this time they dare sue Apple over the design they stole from Apple but managed to patent inside China: Criminal Nation. – – Does this fit all the facts?
If this wasn’t all going on in China, I’d have less expectation of it being crooked. I know full well there are inspired and motivated creators in China. I of course wish all the criminal ripoff scum would be put in jail instead of being a predominant source of technology revenue in the country. 😛
I almost went to China on an animation project and this behavior I’m afraid is very typical. No mutual agreement is set in stone, it’s subject to their willy-nilly nature to abruptly change terms as it suits them. They want to take your talents (or designs) and pay very little or steal them outright and have the audacity to then sue you for your own designs. And the courts are corrupt enough you can actually win with such nonsense.
Wow…xenophobia city!
And severe irony fail.
So, US import procedures, licensing law, business law/practice/procedures and customs,legal loopholes and hurdles – to name just a few of the myriad differences between two cultures…are so simple for foreign companies to negotiate, fair, above reproach and efficient?
Funny when so many here would gladly crucify the US Patent Office for its failings.
File under Cost of doing Business.
Apple should come out with iPhone that has a physical keyboard and see how many companies sue them for infringement. 😆
Bring back the rotary dial!
Lol with The Chinese always with serious problems of identity thinking in rest of foreign companies break in law in copyrights but they can breaks the rules every where in the world…….
Oh, snap. How’s that business relationship with China feelin’ now, Apple? Them Asian bruthers treatin’ you well? It’s all mutual respect and trust.
Nice and simple, Frank.
Some scumbags are Chinese, so all Chinese are scumbags.
The US is #1, so the US has no scumbags.
Nice job on the political/social/economic analysis.
No sensible person would have made the same interpretation as you, Sean.
Why don’t you do the world a favor an print the names of the Chinese plaintiffs, Chinese governmental, bureaucrats, Chinese judges, and Chinese members of the jury (if any) involved in this case so we can all feel better, asshole.
From what little I can gather about the creation and release of the Baili 100+ 100C phones, their patent was based on images of the iPhone 6 that had been leaked at the time. The patent was approved before the iPhone 6 was released by Apple.
Does this make sense? Does anyone have better data?
Thoughts:
– Steve Jobs was of course right to keep everything Apple as secret as possible until public release date.
– Apple’s moving manufacturing to China: Criminal Nation of course destroyed any chance of secrecy.
– What we have here is yet-another crooked Shenzhen company ripping off Apple, but this time they dare sue Apple over the design they stole from Apple but managed to patent inside China: Criminal Nation. – – Does this fit all the facts?
If this wasn’t all going on in China, I’d have less expectation of it being crooked. I know full well there are inspired and motivated creators in China. I of course wish all the criminal ripoff scum would be put in jail instead of being a predominant source of technology revenue in the country. 😛
We keep our criminality more sneaky here in the U.S. 😉
√ There certainly is plenty of it!
I almost went to China on an animation project and this behavior I’m afraid is very typical. No mutual agreement is set in stone, it’s subject to their willy-nilly nature to abruptly change terms as it suits them. They want to take your talents (or designs) and pay very little or steal them outright and have the audacity to then sue you for your own designs. And the courts are corrupt enough you can actually win with such nonsense.
Wow…xenophobia city!
And severe irony fail.
So, US import procedures, licensing law, business law/practice/procedures and customs,legal loopholes and hurdles – to name just a few of the myriad differences between two cultures…are so simple for foreign companies to negotiate, fair, above reproach and efficient?
Funny when so many here would gladly crucify the US Patent Office for its failings.
File under Cost of doing Business.
I think everyone has missed the point. Baili clearly has infringed on earlier iPhone patents.