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Huh. What happened with the lot of 2000 seized OnePlus Buds? ( https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/14/21436760/us-customs-state... )
Did the company just write off that shipment and keep selling them?
I wondered about that. CBP affirmed they didn't make a mistake and then you just never heard about it again.
I had a pair of white Denon Wireless Earbuds that I tried to sell on Facebook Marketplace, still in shrink and with my own photos. They were kicked off as counterfeit items, presumably because I described them as knockoff Air Pods and that triggered some filter. I wonder if Apple is also coaching classified ad sides with the same trademark messaging they're giving CBP?
“Apple is being asked why they had the police raid someone’s business and steal their merchandise, and their response is a recitation of their business model: an incredible admission of how they view law enforcement as a simple weapon for Apple to use use to enforce their preferences.”
I ask myself daily “What is law enforcement if not a simple weapon to be used to enforce my personal preferences?”
This is why I buy neither Apple nor Nintendo parts brand new wherever I can. I'd rather pay the last owner than have it go into the coffers of increasingly evil corporations.
They may be right in some cases, i.e. genuine fraud, but not when abusing law to help maintain a near monopoly.
Microsoft got done for maintaining a monopoly and browser walled garden at a time when it was the biggest company in the world.
What has changed with Apple?
One reason some people like buying Apple products new is they have a reasonable resale value. So actually buying used still helps Apple by maintaining the resale market.
I hate IP in its current forms yet I have trouble getting particularly outraged by this article.
If we have laws protecting IP, why is it wrong to enforce them? Why is it wrong to train LE to recognize counterfeits?
Granted the article did discuss some shady stuff like CBP seizing stuff and auctioning it off; I think that civil forfeiture and other such seizures are unconstitutional takings but the Supreme Court doesn’t agree.
Also Apple has done shady stuff like sending their security people to private homes to track down leaked prototypes [1].
But my bottom line is let’s get rid of bad IP law, not complain about the side effects of enforcement.
[1] https://www.cultofmac.com/112054/san-francisco-police-admits...
I think it’s massively problematic that a few select mega corporations with deep pockets get to enforce what products are allowed to be brought into the US with no due process.
CBP should train to learn what products to seize, but that training shouldn’t be taught by a self-interested corporation. It increases the barrier to entry of new competitors as you must bribe the CBP to have your trademarks enforced, and the CBP ends up with an unfair focus on one company’s products.
I agree; let’s change the laws!
This is not a case of IP law being enforced. This is a case of the CBP using their power to punish Apple's competitors, despite no actual violations having occurred.
I have seen arguments that even word ip is bad as it conditions you to believe ideas are property, I think i may agree.
We should definitely get rid of bad enforcement immediately, enforcement is like 90% of a laws effect.
The term “intellectual property” is at best a catch-all to lump together disparate laws. Nonlawyers who hear one term applied to these various laws tend to assume they are based on a common principle and function similarly.
Nothing could be further from the case. These laws originated separately, evolved differently, cover different activities, have different rules, and raise different public policy issues.
The problem is that CBP is enforcing Apple’s desire to prevent people from importing used Apple products (or new items that compete with what Apple sells). Neither activity is actually illegal, but CBP has vast powers that are not constrained by the normal domestic legal process and Apple had found a way to maximally abuse CBP’s powers
Remember that anti-spam company that made you embed a haiku they trademarked and if some spammer used it, they go after them? What a weird idea. They must have gotten millions for such a ridiculous idea, as their logo was emblazoned on a large office building they most likely occupied right off the highway.
Isn’t this describing people having “grey market” or worse products confiscated?
If the Apple logo is on a part then the manufacturer likely made that part for Apple under some agreement and the manufacturer is not permitted to make more of those exact pieces for other buyers.
Also if those pieces were made for Apple and didn’t pass QA, then the manufacturer can’t just sell them. They have agreements to destroy them.
If the Apple logo is on a thing then it’s a counterfeit someone is trying to pass off as real or an official part that “fell off a truck” or didn’t pass QA and should have been recycled or something…
If I legitimately paid a manufacturer for a compatible part to be made, I’d expect no logo on it
> Isn’t this describing people having “grey market” or worse products confiscated?
No. The products in question were assembled using a combination of standard hardware components and genuine OEM parts salvaged from broken Apple devices.
Since Apple goes to great lengths to prevent third parties from accessing components used in Apple devices, salvaging OEM parts from busted machines is often the only legitimate way to produce replacement parts that are compatible with Apple products.
> If the Apple logo is on a thing then it’s a counterfeit someone is trying to pass off as real or an official part
None of the products in the examples from this article were branded with Apple logos or advertised as being genuine Apple products. Internal components (e.g. cables) within the products were found to have Apple branding because the parts were salvaged from genuine Apple devices.
The Apple brand was never used to identify anything that wasn't a genuine, OEM component - ergo not counterfeit.
> Internal components (e.g. cables) within the products were found to have Apple branding because the parts were salvaged from genuine Apple devices.
Source?
It seems far more likely those parts came from the original factory selling original parts under the table for whatever reasons, or are actually counterfeited with just the logo stamped on them afterwards. Salvaging parts from used devices at such scales would require a pretty extensive operation.
Read the part under "Versus Competing Accessories", there's no Apple logo involved, there's nothing grey about a manufacturer making their own goods. Their alleged crime is that it's an earbud, with a shape that doesn't even look like Apple's products: https://www.oneplus.com/us/product/oneplus-buds
The author appears to accidentally make the assumption that in order for it to be a counterfeit part, it must be 100% counterfeit.
CBP doesn’t work that way. Honey that is adulterated with 25% corn syrup is counterfeit. Ripping the Nike logo off a genuine shoe, and gluing it onto an imported shoe, is still counterfeiting. Swapping the logo on a cheap handbag, with a genuine logo from a ruined one, is still counterfeiting. From these examples and others, they are trained to recognize “hybrids” as fake in multiple industries.
Third party screens with genuine Apple cables and logos? Why should CBP treat that differently? How does CBP know you aren’t going to sell them as genuine parts?
> Third party screens with genuine Apple cables and logos? Why should CBP treat that differently?
Because reselling a genuine cable is completely legal even if you attach it to a third-party screen. Swapping logos is not comparable because the cable provides a genuine function completely unrelated to the logo that happens to be printed on it.
> How does CBP know you aren’t going to sell them as genuine parts?
That isn't CBPs problem, its Apple's problem to identify and enforce their trademark if someone actually does attempt to sell them as genuine parts.
> reselling a genuine cable is completely legal even if you attach it to a third-party screen.
The courts disagree that this is always true.
For example:
https://casetext.com/case/martins-herend-imports-v-diamond-g...
https://casetext.com/case/mary-kay
https://casetext.com/case/warner-lambert-co-v-northside-deve...
Even Wikipedia:
> A trademark owner can overcome the first sale doctrine defense if it can show that the unauthorized reseller is using the trademark on goods that lack its quality control standards.
> Swapping logos is not comparable because the cable provides a genuine function completely unrelated to the logo that happens to be printed on it.
Not necessarily. The law cares about the brand, not the function. Morally, there’s a distinction; legally, I don’t see why the functionality has any relevance.
> Because reselling a genuine cable is completely legal even if you attach it to a third-party screen
CBP seized hybrid products, as mentioned above, all the time; even when no logo is present (honey with adulterations is a big problem). The claim it’s completely legal isn’t necessarily true. Individually selling a screen, or a ribbon cable, would probably have much better luck than the combination of the two.
> Because reselling a genuine cable is completely legal even if you attach it to a third-party screen. Swapping logos is not comparable because the cable provides a genuine function completely unrelated to the logo that happens to be printed on it.
Seems like a plausible test but it's easy to poke holes in it. What if I get some shoe laces with a pattern of the Louis Vuitton logo and put them in generic shoes?
For one thing, your examples involve amalgamation in a way that is simply not applicable to computer parts with removable cables. Those have always been understood to be separate parts. If I was selling a computer with an Intel CPU, but used a third-party cooler, or a third-party accessory cable, nobody would claim I was selling a "counterfeit" device.
> How does CBP know you aren't going to sell them as genuine parts?
You can come up with a venal explanation for any item sold in commerce or any human behavior. If we enforced import and intellectual property law based on what people might do, nobody could do anything.
This is a nonsensical argument, the CBP doesn’t know if they will be sold illegally, the same way they don’t know that a company importing corn syrup AND honey is actually going to mix them and sell a counterfeit product.
A bottle of corn syrup and a bottle of honey are both legal products, a third-party screen with a hidden non-advertised genuine component is also legal, it’s only afterwards that an illegal product could be made.
It’s impossible for the CBP to know if illegal activity will occur, but you are advocating seizure without due process based on the possibility of a crime.
The logos are microscopic and for internal connections. The screens don't claim to be genuine
Even more so than this, counterfeit goods can be made in the same factories as the real deal. One of the problems that luxury brands have is that contract manufacturers will sometimes either divert items with minor quality-control failures, or overproduce and sell into grey-market channels.
Is there a difference between a factory that overproduces some fancy sneakers and resells them through unauthorized channels (which is a generally accepted example of counterfeiting) and this case? I'm sure there is, but it's a difference of degree rather than a bright-line issue.
Seems similar to Nintendo's use of their trademark as an anti-piracy measure in the early consoles.
That's digital and involved copyright though.
If I go pry the OEM badge off a Ford car and try to re-sell it... it doesn't matter that its a Ford part or that Ford doesn't sell it to the public (only with a car, might be wrong here, but go with me)
Wasn't a carveout eventually made for this specific case though?
I assume there's no way to "prove" the provenance of the flex cables. Maybe some type of test? But CBP isn't going to spend millions outfitting their agents with the training and equipment provided to do that.
While I support Apple's right to do this, and can even accept/agree with the consumer protection rationale, the truth is Apple is attempting to fight a massive uphill battle hill with counterfeits. They're obviously losing. It's easy to find knock-off Apple products.
We have some experience as a country allowing over-powered government agencies to seize property based on suspicion and without proof. It accomplishes very little overall, wastes an enormous amount of resources, and harms innocent people as readily as it harms the guilty.
The "risk" of getting your property seized is obviously low enough that counterfeiters can just factor that in as a cost, just as cartels do. You know you're going to lose X number of shipments.
So we're not accomplishing enough to make a real dent in the problem, and in trying to do anything at all, you're harming innocent people.
Not a great look.
So if I assemble a computer for someone, do I have to scratch the logos off everything? Is it reasonable to call the machine "counterfiet" because the CPU says "Intel" on the heat spreader? Or because one of the memory chips says "Samsung"?
Most other manufacturers produce electronics with components from a wide variety of sources, bearing many brand names. What makes Apple components special?
In one sense I'm not surprised that the general reaction seems to be "shrug ". This is a story about Apple being Apple, and Border Control being, well Border Control.
Both organisations have a well-deserved reputation. Both are behaving completely in character.
That the biggest company can pay to enlist the support of the most-insulated police force surprises no-one.
Perhaps more depressing is that there's no expectation of improvement. Juicy press expose leading to reform? Not likely.
The way CBP seizures work seems pretty backwards. A similar story happened with Li-Ning where the CBP alleged they were using North Korean labor and started seizing their products and apparently, for whatever reason, the onus moves on to them to prove they are not using North Korean labor, rather than on the government to prove that they are.
I want to take this opportunity to mention CBP has jurisdiction 100 air miles from any external boundary of the U.S
They have jurisdiction everywhere within the US, but enhanced powers near the borders. Some details in [0].
Specifically, they have the right to search and seize "with no suspicion of unlawful activity" within 100 miles of any border - including sea borders, so that's about 70% of the US by population. Also anywhere around international airports and inland waters "with ready access to the open sea", but the 100-mile zone doesn't appear to apply there.
Certain other powers are limited to 10 or 25 miles from the border.
[0] https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/LSB/LSB10559
Louis Rossmann needs to read this!
Traveled from Colombia, at the airport one of the agents seemed very interested in my Macbook Pro 2007, specially the logo, that big white 3D logo. I said to myself, hey that would be a clever way to conceal it ;)
3D? Do you mean illuminated?
This article doesn’t make sense and self contradicts in a major way:
> especially since Apple doesn’t sell these parts separately
> The parts aren’t being seized because they’re counterfeit. In fact, they’re demonstrably not counterfeit: the only reason an Apple logo is on a piece of a “third-party” component is because that piece is original OEM Apple hardware being legally re-sold:
If Apple doesn’t sell these, then how is this unauthorized repair shop getting parts with original logos? That implies that maybe these parts were not obtained legitimately right? Not necessarily counterfeit but maybe stolen.
That being said, Apple doesn’t do a great job here considering SF streets are flooded with actual counterfeit AirPods and AirPods MAX (like in fully sealed boxes that look exactly like original).
There are tons of ways to legitimately obtain these cables that are completely legal. The fact that it's also possible to obtain them illegally should not place a ban on the product.
You're perfectly within your rights to strip your iPhone for parts and resell each piece individually with original logos intact.
> The screens that were seized are “hybrid” parts: the screens are third-party, but use a few original Apple parts like a flex cable that connects the screen to the phone. That invisible, internal part is marked with an Apple logo, which is enough to let the CBP seize the entire shipment.
If they're stolen, go prove it in court. The logo doesn't really enter into it.
If you buy phones with cracked screens, you have a supply of iPhone flex cables. Apple does not own those flex cables, but them putting their holy sigil[0] on the cables lets them pretend that they do to cash-strapped government agencies that are willing to accept bribes from Apple.
Furthermore, the parts were seized on trademark grounds; the program in question only deals with trademark. There are different processes for dealing with stolen goods (as opposed to counterfeit ones) but those would require Apple to provide proof. CBP's trademark program lets you just say "we own this mark, here's a lot of money, we'll tell you what to seize".
[0] Apple is a religion. Tim Cook is the iPhone pope. Nobody can tell me otherwise.