Lawyers working for Apple have spent the last few months trying, and universally succeeding, to destroy any companies who have been selling iPhone clones. However, the Managing Director of one such company was shocked at their ruthlessness.

No-one blames Apple for trying to protect its name, copyrights and patents, and trying to stop the sale of any product which breaks or infringes on any of those. But does it really need to put otherwise honest and hard-working people out of business for the cause?

Red Ferret spoke to Simon Rimmer, Managing Director of Digital Playworld, a company that has been selling Chinese made iPhone clones since last year, and his testimony includes claims of bullyboy tactics.

“Apple stated that they were the owner of Unregistered Community Design Rights in its iPhone, iPod Touch and other products. They stated that “The similarity between the products and their Designs is striking, In particular they said that my iClone products – which they listed in their letter – created the same impression as several of their Apple Community Registered Designs. They claimed that I acknowledged this similarity by using phrases such as ‘iPhone style’, ‘in the style of iPhone’ and ‘looks very like the iPhone’ in my descriptions.

As a small business, Rimmer had no choice but to settle out of court, as even though he didn’t agree with all of Apple’s claims, he couldn’t afford the legal costs involved in fighting the lawyers in court. So he gave in, and received terms of settlement.

“In order to settle out of court I had to take several undertakings, which
included amongst other things:

Remove all said items from my site (or any other sites) and stop selling
them.

Sign an oath that I would not offer to sell, market, import or stock ANY
products which are strikingly similar in design to Apple’s registered
designs.

Deliver to Apple’s legal team all remaining products in my possession,
suppliers details, prices paid for them, numbers imported, marketed and
sold.

I had to pay a contribution to their legal expenses AND damages.

So after all the costs and losing stock, I am as good as broke now!”

While I’m not defending Rimmer’s sale of iPhone clones in an effort to make a fast buck, the demands placed on him upon surrender do seem particularly harsh, and have caused him to be virtually bankrupt.

The oath not to sell any products strikingly similar to Apple registered designs seems not only harsh, but legally dubious, as when does a item stop being just slightly similar, and become strikingly similar. That’s hardly legalese in my book.

The obvious question of course is why was Rimmer so surprised when he was caught and threatened in the most harsh terms possible when he knew what he was doing was illegal, but I still have my doubts whether all those conditions were actually neccesary.

This is just another sign that Apple is slowly but surely turning in to Microsoft.

Related:

Lawyers ditching crackberry for iPhone

Judge refuses AT&T injunction request for Verizon ads

A Chinese iPhone clone that at least looks good

Apple App Store downloads sail past 2 billion

iPhone gets AT&T business plans

Entry was posted on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 at 8:38 pm under International, Legal, News, Opinion, iPhone.  Print This Post

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
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