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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: 1, Troll) by VLM on Tuesday April 17 2018, @12:03PM (15 children)
Seems very difficult to get the whole story, either its in foreign language or carefully simplified.
I suspect the censored other side of the story is its not unusual for there to be some sort of contract where dealers get every replacement part made at a price between retail and wholesale with a side dish of you're only getting this price break if you don't deal in stolen/fake merchandise, or in this specific case you can get the discount on batteries and camera sensors if and only if you also cough up 25K NOKs which according to google is only $3K which seems reasonable as a total for 60 stolen/fake screens or seems reasonable as a punishment for breaking the price break contract.
I worked at a place that had a contract like that for telecommunications equipment. We got a substantial price discount in exchange for not re-selling ebay chinese gray market junk.
I can't imagine the nightmare at both companies of mixing genuine and chinese grey market and then trying to do returns or replacements on faulty stuff. This might be one of the specific scams the contract is trying to prevent; buy 10 gray market screens and 10 genuine screens, return all 10 genuine screens with the fakes tossed in the box instead of the real screens for a refund or minimal restocking fee. Give your customers genuine screens at the price of gray market plus some shipping.
The end result is customers going to get screwed; local dealers either go out of business due to no discount being offered anymore, or prices explode because no discounts offered. If thats the case, which may or may not be true, then the dealer would hypothetically be an asshole, ruining an entire countries independent cell phone repair industry just because he was running a scam operation and didn't want to do the time after getting caught doing the crime, but of course that might not be the case as the overall situation is extremely censored.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Nuke on Tuesday April 17 2018, @12:31PM (7 children)
[VLM's post] WTF ?? ANd what has "stolen" got to do with this case?
A non-OEM spare part is only fake if it is claimed to be OEM. I maintain cars, and have worked at a workshop repairing cars, and frankly I do not expect (and have never much seen) replacement parts like brakes, filters, bearings etc (generally the parts that can wear out) to be from the original car maker. To buy spares from the main delaer branded like "Chrysler" or "Mercedes" costs anything up to four times what it does if branded as "Ferodo" or "Fram" from an independent parts suppier. And when I buy Ferodo brake pads I do not regard them as "fake" Chrysler brake pads. With the car workshop, customers could not give shit as long as it worked afterwards, and if it did not it was on us to put it right.
I'll tell you a secret : car makers don't generally makes their own brake pads and oil filters (if ever AFAIK). They are contracted out to companies like Ferodo and Fram and supplied to the car makers for fitting to new cars, and for selling as spares at dealerships with "Chrysler" (or whatever) branding on the box. That has been the practice in that trade for years.
The issue of Chinese making crap is a different one, but that is not what has galvanised Apple here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 17 2018, @12:56PM (2 children)
I'll tell you a secret : car makers don't generally makes their own brake pads and oil filters (if ever AFAIK). They are contracted out to companies like Ferodo and Fram and supplied to the car makers for fitting to new cars, and for selling as spares at dealerships with "Chrysler" (or whatever) branding on the box. That has been the practice in that trade for years.
That's no secret, that's common knowledge among anyone who knows the first thing about cars. Automakers like Ford and Honda barely make *anything* themselves, aside from engines and bodies. The only thing they're good at is the actual design of course, and on the manufacturing side they make the "bodies in white" (the stamped and pressed steel pieces that are welded together to make the chassis), and the engine blocks and other mechanicals (pistons, camshafts, crankshafts, etc. for the engines, suspension pieces, etc.). Pretty much everything else is contracted out to a supplier: electronics, lights, filters, belts, brake pads, tires, etc. The automaker then has the supplier ship all these things to their factories where they're put together into working cars. Modern automobiles probably have the most complicated supply chains of any product on the planet (airliners and cruise ships might be more though).
(Score: 2) by Shimitar on Tuesday April 17 2018, @02:22PM
I believe cars are the most complex. As for aircrafts, and i believe cruise ships is even more so, it's often a much less industrialized approach due to raw numbers. It make sense to set up such a complex supply chain only for very high market numbers. If you make "only" a few hundreds of units (or even much much less!) it does not make sense.
For example, the very widespread Boeing 737 has been produced in a few thousands units... While the shittiest car is what, two orders of magnitude more?
And for cruise ships, i would not be surprised if it was more like an handicraft product in comparison with cars.
Coding is an art. No, java is not coding. Yes, i am biased, i know, sorry if this bothers you.
(Score: 3, Funny) by redneckmother on Tuesday April 17 2018, @03:56PM
... citation needed ...
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 1, Troll) by VLM on Tuesday April 17 2018, @02:35PM (3 children)
Yeah believe me I know you can get a genuine GM thermostat that runs for a decade or a no-name that needs replacing every two years, or a factory battery that lasted the first six years and replacements that only last three years. Don't get me started on exhaust systems, apparently only factories can make exhaust systems that last longer than three years.
But the general point stands, given that we're only provided with a very carefully edited story from only one perspective, there's probably another side of the story we have not been permitted to read and in my experience at least in some fields, as sort of a bulk discount deal, vendors will provide a much better contracted price if you're willing to give something up in exchange, like single sourcing from them or a contractual declaration you'll never buy gray market or some foolishness about licensing or whatever. The point is they give you money (or take less) in exchange for jumping some hoops. Even if the hoops are stupid, the money was real enough. And its not even remotely controversial that supply contracts have punishment clauses that boil down to if you break the contract or lie, you owe a fat stack of cash, and this guy went judicial to get out of living up to his fair share of the contract.
I would fall out of my chair if the "whole story" was apple's refund/reimbursement check bounced or they denied his contractual discount on the P.O. so he felt released from his own contractual obligations. How could something like that be missed in a story, no matter how biased it might be portrayed? AFAIK apple lived up to its side of the supply contract. Did this dude? I'm guessing reading between the lines its somewhere between "its complicated" and "hell no".
Sure monopolies suck, but a good analogy is you sign up for a monopoly cable modem internet access, then use it to send spam so they disconnect you, then get a judge to reinstate service despite the spam solely on the argument that monopolies suck so nobody should have to follow any contractual obligation of any sort, eh I'm unimpressed with that argument.
Regardless how much monopolies suck, if you freely and willfully enter into a deal with a monopoly, if they follow the written contract you shouldn't screw them over just because they're a monopoly and monopolies suck so you should be free to use the contract as toilet paper. Somebody is breaking the rules in this story, and for once it ain't the monopoly AFAIK.
This is also shitty anti-monopoly propaganda. If, like myself, you don't like monopolies, then providing the weakest imaginable argument against them is darn near propaganda in support of monopolies; this story (story in the sense of the greater narrative of events, not in the small scale of Fnord666's efforts) is just awful.
I mean, simplifying this to playground level argument, it boils down to if you freely make a fair agreement with someone that people don't like, you should be free to fuck them over when you want without consequences solely because they are disliked, and this is somehow good.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 17 2018, @02:49PM
Maybe you should find a cite for this other side of the story you seem to desperately wish existed.
(Score: 1) by Stardaemon on Wednesday April 18 2018, @06:19AM (1 child)
If you click " but Huseby won [documentcloud.org]" in the summary (or here), you'll get one link to a text version and one to a pdf.
That's about as much of the "whole story", as you can reasonably expect.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday April 18 2018, @11:55AM
I don't read that language, so ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 17 2018, @01:32PM
Well yeah, I suppose it's entirely possible to dream up a fantasy scenario where Apple is within their rights despite losing in court.
Can we work the weather war into this? Maybe iPhones work as swarm weather generators, but without official screens with embedded unobtanium from α Draconis IV, they can't modulate the weather control rays properly. So it's obvious! If the humans don't want to participate in the draconis-forming of Earth, they need to stop buying iPhones! In fact, I think we can explain climate change if we graph against iPhone sales. Our only hope is to revive piracy on the high seas, the only factor known to be inversely correlated with the global warming effect of draconis-forming.
After all, why else would Apple be so sensitive about pirates? They know that pirates are the only hope for humanity to stop the lizard person weather war!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday April 17 2018, @02:01PM (5 children)
You seem to have missed something. The parts being put into those phones were indeed "genuine" Apple parts. Parts that had failed at some point in time, and were sent back to the factory to be refurbished. Mr. Huseby would have been perfectly justified in uncovering the Apple brand, before installing the parts, because they WERE Apple parts, from Apple's own supply chain. Genuine as a newborn baby's bare ass!
So, Apple is objecting to Apple products being repaired with Apple parts - all because Apple didn't get to gouge Mr. Huseby for some idiot licensing fee.
Fuck Apple.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1, Troll) by VLM on Tuesday April 17 2018, @02:48PM (4 children)
Broken apple parts, not apple parts. And now apple is liable long term for subsequent repairs needed because of dodgy parts.
Also like I wrote anecdotally there's high likelihood he once signed a contract for ipad batteries or some tangentially related thing where he got 5% discount on parts if he solemnly swears not to traffic in dodgy parts, then turned around and did it anyway, and at least per the propaganda his sole defense is "monopolies suck and everyone hates apple so what I did is OK".
I'm just saying I recognize it as a fake news story and based on past experience find it highly likely the other side has some carefully unreported undocumented argument that's likely much better than "we're evil ha ha ha". Yet I also admit that apple is probably not pure saints either, but since we're only getting propaganda version we'll never really know which side is worse than the other. Probably apple has more to lose in PR than the little shop, so its historically likely they're less corrupt statistically speaking on long term averages, so its more likely the shop owner is being a jerk, but given the level of censorship we'll never know for certain.
(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.