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Last year, Apple’s lawyers sent Henrik Huseby, the owner of a small electronics repair shop in Norway, a letter demanding that he immediately stop using aftermarket iPhone screens at his repair business and that he pay the company a settlement.
Norway’s customs officials had seized a shipment of 63 iPhone 6 and 6S replacement screens on their way to Henrik’s shop from Asia and alerted Apple; the company said they were counterfeit.
In order to avoid being sued, Apple asked Huseby for “copies of invoices, product lists, order forms, payment information, prints from the internet and other relevant material regarding the purchase [of screens], including copies of any correspondence with the supplier … we reserve the right to request further documentation at a later date.”
The letter, sent by Frank Jorgensen, an attorney at the Njord law firm on behalf of Apple, included a settlement agreement that also notified him the screens would be destroyed. The settlement agreement said that Huseby agrees “not to manufacture, import, sell, market, or otherwise deal with any products that infringe Apple’s trademarks,” and asked required him to pay 27,700 Norwegian Krone ($3,566) to make the problem go away without a trial.
“Intellectual Property Law is a specialized area of law, and seeking legal advice is in many instances recommended,” Jorgensen wrote in the letter accompanying the settlement agreement. “However, we can inform you that further proceedings and costs can be avoided by settling the case.”
Huseby decided to fight the case.
“That’s a letter I would never put my signature on,” Huseby told me in an email. “They threw all kinds of claims against me and told me the laws and acted so friendly and just wanted me to sign the letter so it would all be over. I had a good lawyer that completely understood the problem, did good research, and read the law correctly.”
Apple sued him. Local news outlets reported that Apple had five lawyers in the courtroom working on the case, but Huseby won. Apple has appealed the decision to a higher court; the court has not yet decided whether to accept the appeal.
[...] The specifics of Huseby’s case won’t matter for American repair shops, but that Apple continues to aggressively pursue a repair shop owner over 63 iPhone screens signals that Apple is not interested in changing its stance on independent repair, and that right to repair activists and independent repair companies should expect a long fight ahead of them: “I feel that this case was extremely important for them to win,” Huseby said.
He just hopes to get back to his shop, he told me.
“I will continue to repair iPhone like I did before, no change,” he said. “I’m glad I now don’t have to be afraid of importing compatible spare parts for iPhone again.”
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Tuesday April 17 2018, @03:39PM (3 children)
Wow, you really are desperate to show that this shop is wrong and Apple is right, facts be damned, aren't you?
So let's look at the lede in the article (if reading the article is permitted here on SN?):
"Apple said an unauthorized repair shop ...."
"unauthorized" means that the contract your fevered imagination keeps creating does not exist.
(Score: 0, Troll) by VLM on Tuesday April 17 2018, @03:57PM (2 children)
Well, I guess if you're satisfied the story is fair and balanced and informs you of both sides moral, ethical and legal arguments, then you're all good.
I see it as terribly inadequate reporting by the clickbait journalist and can think of at least one perfectly reasonable argument from personal experience, which may or may not apply.
As a side analogy, sure, I'll take that bet about the authorization. I'm not an authorized distributor but I've bought stuff from Linear Express before Analog Devices bought them. I'm sure I signed a NDA or export control agreement or just a simple purchase order in the past. I think you had to sign off on their terms and conditions just to process a simple order. And thats just some semi-commodity IC chips. Meanwhile I've never seen a legal case where theres verbal dancing around authorized sales center vs authorized repair center vs signed purchase contract type of stuff. I mean, as a practical matter, with something so high tech it seems unlikely someone could operate a business at complete arms length never working with big bad apple ever for anything. I'm sure in some twisted sense its possible to define the shop as authorized or unauthorized but in a practical sense how can they operate without some level of cooperation (a click-wrap license on some downloaded documentation; something?)
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday April 17 2018, @09:51PM
Given the history of it being much more common for big organizations to have more power and to abuse it to bully, harm, and destroy little ones, for the sole purposes of eliminating competition and strengthening their monopolies, and also the fact that courts do make more good rulings than bad ones (of course the bad rulings get most of the press, so it's easy to think the courts are rife with incompetence and corruption when they aren't) and when they do make bad rulings. they tend to favor the big, wealthy, and powerful over the small, poor, and weak, I'm inclined to agree with the court's findings on this one.
Do you believe in the Right to Repair?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 17 2018, @11:29PM
> Well, I guess if you're satisfied the story is fair and balanced and informs you of both sides moral, ethical and legal arguments, then you're all good.
Please show me on the doll where the Fake News touched you.