Chinese company sued Apple for allegedly copying its design in iPhone 6, ordered to halt sales

The Beijing Intellectual Property Office has ruled that Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus infringe on the patent rights of another smartphone sold within China. Baili, a Chinese device manufacturer, has recently sued Apple for allegedly copying its smartphone design specifically with the 100C phone that went on sale earlier in April 2014.

“If the position by the Beijing IP office is upheld and Apple doesn’t appeal further, then in theory they wouldn’t be able to sell the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.” – Ted Chwu, IP specialist

iphone 6 b100

The claim is likely an attempt to achieve a financial settlement with Apple. Although there would appear to be no valid basis for the claim, Apple does sometimes settle disputes rather than go through protracted legal proceedings. As of this writing, Apple has already filed an appeal against the ruling stated below.

Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus have minor differences from Baili’s 100C. The differences are so tiny that the average customer could not notice. So, this case falls into the patent rights protection category.

Do you find these devices looking exactly the same to each other? Let us know your opinion in the comment section below.

Source

Heland Ortega

This article was written by Heland Ortega, Junior Contributor of YugaTech. He is a graduate of Information Technology and Multimedia Arts at FEU Institute of Technology in where he is also now working as a full-time faculty. You can follow him at @helandortega.

http://www.yugatech.com

14 Comments

Polemic says:

8 years ago

I tried really hard…but no, the Baili looks just like any run of the mill Android phone.
And let’s not forget that Xiaomi and Meizu, on the other hand, is blatantly copying design cues from Apple without any form of resistance.
Simply ridiculous.
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FAKOL says:

8 years ago

Letseng CHINA yan, namemera lang yan. Hahaha, eh pang CLOUDPHONE yang design nila. Lol
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[email protected] says:

8 years ago

hey apple why can’t you sue chinese copy cat phone makers??? afraid of losing your production workforce at china?
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Ronald says:

8 years ago

it seems china is now beginning to wage war. One by one, first the disputed sea, now with the products they produce. Ano kaya susunod?
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Summer says:

8 years ago

Pangit nung design, sue pa more.
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Silvernaut says:

8 years ago

The is so funny. No offense sa mga chinese dito pero p*t*ng *na. Ang taas ng tingin niyo sa sirili niyo. Hindi na kayo nahiya. The last time i checked made in china lahat ng fake products hindi lang phones. Pati asukal finifake niyo.
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Easy E says:

8 years ago

Wag sana kayo malito sa “nationality” at “ethnicity”. Yung mga Pinoy na may lahing Chinese ay mababait din naman. Saka yung mga Chinese na may Pinoy culture ok din naman sila. Iba rin ang culture ng mga taga Hongkong at Taiwan. Pero agree ako sa comment na mataas ang tingin ng mga Chinese (na taga mainland) sa sarili nila. Saka marami sa kanila ay mga salaula sila sa salita at gawa.
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Deng says:

8 years ago

Wow Apple pa ang nag copy sa kanila.
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Ulysses Grant says:

8 years ago

China is the land of copy cats and accused of Apple, a copy that spends millions on R&D, for copying their shitty design? Who would fucking believe that?
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