Apple sues NYC mom & pop shops Apple has filed suit against a number of retail stores in the Chinatown district of Queens, New York, proving that Jobs & Co doesn't only flex its legal muscle against heavy hitters such as HTC, Amazon, and Samsung. According to a Reuters report, the consumer-electronics giant was granted a temporary restraining order and …
The drones of the country know these apple devices are made in sweatshops using slave-like labor. The drones flock to buy them anyhow.
There was a local piece here about a mall selling fake jeans. Jeans selling for $300/pair were being replaced with replicas.
The cops were there raiding the store.
Why aren't they raiding the sweatshops? I can only assume these jeans are made in sweatshops and heck even if they aren't a $300 pair of jeans? The only criminals are the ones able to get away with it.
If your going to be brash enough to sell a pair of jeans for $300 have the integrity not to get uppity if people are selling replicas.
Cut your losses like the american workforce has had to do while jobs are shipped overseas
Apple Story? They must have been financially suicidal to pull that sort of a prank! In the heart of Big App..umm.. no less..
If Apple had its way, we'd be looking for a new name for some green or red crunchy fruit by now. Those billions don't come by being tolerant and kind-hearted, or even fair, you know..
Not that the Register has the boots on the ground resources, but the local NYC press was happy to deliver pics of cheapo cases with the Apple logo. Apparently identical to the registered trademark that Apple has used for some 35+ years, in its current shiny chrome incarnation. I don't suppose the “defendants” will attempt to justify their actions in any way.
Perhaps the Register legal counsel would explain why this article is not an invitation to another web site to copy The Register ® name and logo without so much as a whimper. Because this seemingly claims the little ® is simply irrelevant to how people should do business these days. Some mom & pop people deserve to overrun the Big Bad Register 'cuz that's what Democracy is all about, eh?
Unlike Google, which has its Chief Counsel whine to the press when it runs afoul of the legal system, Apple lets the courts enforce existing laws. Whether it wins or loses cases, it doesn't end-run the legal system by trying to sway public opinion. Apple's practice is thereby more like the actual legal requirements in the UK, giving people who rip off its IP every benefit of the doubt.
How perfectly Cupertinian.
It appears that in your haste to fawn you forgot to read the article - how perfectly commentardian.
Where is it claimed that "the little ® is simply irrelevant to how people should do business these days" ?
Are you new here? El Reg may have its faults but defending freetardery and IP theft isn't one of them.
You run the risk every time you pay too much attention to the Register's innuendo, when the actual facts that they DON'T report tell you otherwise.
Lots of people legitimately use the word "Apple" in their names, none more obviously than the Beatles' old outfit. (And Apple paid them perhaps many millions for the right to sell "Apple" musical equipment.)
These shops were selling junk gear with the exact Apple, Inc, logo. Shiny, with a bite out of it.
Your supposition is equivalent to saying that no other newspaper in the world could call itself "The Register," e.g., The Cleveland Register, because this website has registered the name.
While the snide implications in the article are that every "mom & pop" website should be able to rip off the name, logo and create counterfeit "Register.Com" or "Register.Com.UK" type URLs, and this publication wouldn't give a rat's ass.
...turned up a number of lawsuits, where Apple sued various companies:
A school, for having a logo that looked like an apple.
Woolworths, for having an apple-like logo.
NYC's greenyc, for using an apple logo.
And then there's the time they sued Sector Labs over the name pod, or Amazon over the name "app store", or... the list goes on. I understand suing people to protect your name and/or logo, but Apple sues anyone even *marginally* related. Sure, this might be warranted, but chances are... they are just sue-happy.
>>Judge Kiyo Matsumoto of the US District Court... in consultation with plaintiff's and defendants' counsel, has ordered "that all documents remain under seal with access only to counsel for the parties and the court."
How perfectly Cupertinian.<<
This is the judge taking control of the case. It cools things down. It keeps the parties focused. If you have no business here, leave.
I remember reading of an agreement with Apple Studios years back, something like the Studios would let them use Apple as a name as long as they didn't go into the music biz. I reckon they should now take them to the cleaners for every machine they sold since a midi port or sound editor was put on the things! Sauce goose gander etc...
Yes, Apple (then, Computer) Inc. and Apple Music had a long-running standoff.
But it ended with what was reported to be a substantial settlement by Apple Computer. Both parties apparently found it agreeable — they worked it out without outside interference — and that is that!
I have had quite enough of tin-horn despot judges "sealing" cases. US judges are paid by US taxpayer money, so every part of their job (except national security) should be a matter of public record. The US is not England, and we do not have kings, but some judges here regard themselves as kings of their own little domain.
If this matter does not include national security (and it doesn't), all the records should be made public. If not, the judge should be impeached and removed. Apple is not deserving of special treatment.
To be fair, England doesn't have Kings any more either - at least not in any meaningful sense - we haven't really since about 1650 (on and off). We have a stuffed puppet who can wave nicely and pull in the tourists; a bit like Disney World ... with class.
Technically, I suppose, there hasn't been a king of England since the Act of Union in 1707 - since after that date the Scottish and English thrones were one and the same.
And besides... you know your bike? It's a girls bike! *
* "History Today" (Newman and Baddiel) reference for anyone under the age of 30 - sheesh.
You are displaying hopeless ignorance about history there. The Act of Union (1707) has no relevance whatsover to whether there are Kings of England or not, since it created only a union of parliaments. The two countries had shared their Kings (apart from eleven years and a couple of months from 1649 to 1660, when Scotland had a King but England still had a Dictator instead) since James VI of Scotland added the English throne to his throne collection after 35 years and 8 months of being King of Scotland alone. England still had a King (James I, King of England) and Scotland still had a King (James VI, King of Scots), both being the same person despite the difference in numbers. It's just like today: Scotland has a Queen, and England has a Queen; they happen to be the same person.
As for England not really having Kings since about 1650, that is just pure nonsense. Charles II of Scotland (who added the throne of England to his throne collection early in the 12th year of his reign as King of Scotland) was very much a real King of England, probably the best King of England since Richard III. William of Orange and the early Hanoverian Georges were all rather powerful Kings of England (the early Georges had abandoned all pretence of being Kings of Scots, as opposed to Scotland being an appendage of their English Empire, almost wrecking the Union despite several attempts of the Union parliament to require a rational policy in Scotland). Probably the first English monarch who was not a "real King" was Victoria, and she wasn't a "real Queen" because she allowed the royal prerogative to become a venerated but never observed tradition instead of something which had real and effective consequences. Her grandfather's intransigence had destroyed one attempt to obtain a rational resollution of the status of Ireland, and bothe her uncle and her father had excercised a degree of control over parliament during their (brief) reigns - but she excercised no such control. So perhaps we can date ENgland's loss of any "real King" (if, as I think, by that you mean a monarch with real effetive power) to 1837, rather than to 1650 or 1707 as you suggested.
we can sit here and say omg this is horrible they're just using the name in a clever way but we all know it's gonna be some really bad knockoff shop with dodgy chinglish and crappy...everything
although i'd never spend silly money on designer gear i also don't buy knock offs of it for 1 simple reason - the conditions may be poor but the quality is high, knock offs are 99% of the time inferior and in the case of good immitations it can damage a brand
also, is it racist that the second i thought of apple shops in china town all i could think of was the apple logo with a rice paddy hat and 2 south park-esque slits for eyes as the sign ? :D
subordinate clauses ? The Reuter's story, to which you provide a link. notes that the stores in question «sell cases and other accessories for Apple products, including the iPhone, iPod and iPad». Had you bothered to include that information, we readers wouldn't have to had to worry that our friends in Cupertino had attempted to take a bridge too far and that royalties would soon be charged on each example of Malus domestica....
Henri
How about we start making fines percentage based off your income with a guaranteed minimum. If the accused turns out to be innocent they now own 1% of your company. Might stop the bigwigs waving their patent cudgel and jumping out from under the bridge every 5 seconds to demand more toll.
The US has very little in the way of punitive damages. It's one of the reasons we have lawyers running amok over common sense, common decency, and rule of law.
I worked at a Telco years ago and a coworker was in court one day to provide info and data for a hearing about a class action lawsuit. Someone burst in and demanded millions in damage for him and his company from said Telco. People scrambled and were trying to work a deal. The coworker called me to get info on the guy's account and it turns out this jerk wasn't a customer and the address was not even one serviced by the Telco. The jerk and the lawyer walked out and did not receive any punishment, not in fines or jail time or even perjury because they picked their words so carefully.
With all reward and no risk, people tend to try such forms of robbery. That's why companies HAVE to be aggressive to defend themselves, because the law profession is full of people who make honey badgers look pleasant and reasonable. We could change this, but the lawyers write the laws, so we have a law system of the lawyer, by the lawyer, for the lawyer.
I'm surprised it's not a combined vendors sweep. Most import illegal and so grey it is almost black merchandise from Hong Kong and sell it at discounted prices to unknowing dweebs (and I'm probably being generous with the "unknowing" bit). Apple may be the devil incarnate, but this is just a case of the bad guys eating each other.
...deliberately ignoring that the name of the 'Apple Story' isn't the main reason they've been nabbed? I can't see any other option, given that the other store name given has nothing Appley about it... but then there are 50 posts from people frothing at the mouth about how we can't call apples apples anymore - a bit like how a news story about some obscure area of patent law will always result in 50 posts saying, "I'M GOING TO PATENT BREATHING LOL".
Really? Come on - if you want to go after Apple, at least go after them for something that makes sense, instead of inventing something absurd and then whipping yourselves up into a frenzy.
And for all the angry talk of hypocrisy, I find it telling that people who would presumably approve of a small tech vendor fighting a counterfeit importer, suddenly become violently angry at overreaching courts and jackbooted police when the plaintiff is Apple. Funny, that...
Signed, Obviously-Partisan BlackBerry PlayBook Owner
...home of all knockoffs of the world including those tacky, god-awful, ugly Luis Vutton-deisgned purses, donut-sized fake Rolex and other watches and generally speaking all flashy but cheap things that any self-conscious member of the proletariat loves to wear as a perceived indicator of his/her social status.
Yes, iPods and all sorts of things with that bitten-fruit logo on it are also available here.
The only thing you have to fight is the smell - but make no mistake, this is no small undertaking: the smell is a mixture of rotting fish and dogsh!t, day after day heatep up to 90-100 degrees (~30-40 Celsius for prospective EU buyers) by direct sunlight, in 70-80% humidity during July-Sep...
...so bad that when I take a cab home at the end of the day I always make sure all windows are sealed when we make the right turn to Canal St.
The smell is so consistent, horrible and omnipresent that it's impossible to be coincidental; commuting through here for long years we have developed a crazy theory in our office: every morning, just right after sun comes up, designated "wastemen" emerge from their basements with huge tanks of nasty leftover viscera from the Chinese kitchen they work for (being Chinatown there are quite a few) and carefully dispose their content on every other corner... "oh, we need a bit more chicken gizzard here... ahh, these two-days old fish heads will be perfect here... wow, perfect, let this little blood river run downhill from here so the rats giant flies will all line up here..."
...and nature takes care of the rest, providing a "classic" Chinatown smell - a smell that's once smelled forever etched into the consciousness of every out-of-town bargain hunter.
The judge ordered "that all documents remain under seal with access only to counsel for the parties and the court."
Whatever happened to the old-fashioned common law idea that justice must be seen to be done? This looks even worse than the loony "superinjunctions" that have provoked such a fuss in the UK, but it seems to have gone by without notice in the USA.
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