Luxpro wins Apple copycat suit, proceeds to copy again by countersuing

The financial troubles for Apple just don't seem to end. Luxpro – the Taiwanese manufacturer known for its MP3 player that closely resembled the iPod shuffle – has emerged victorious in the lawsuit filed by Apple, and is planning a countersuit for lost sales. Originally hitting the scene with a supposed publicity stunt called the Super Shuffle, Luxpro then returned with a slightly modified version called the Super Tangent. With little variation between the two, Apple called foul and had an injunction placed on the Taiwanese company, banning the manufacturing and sale of its MP3 player. Well, after more than a year rumbling in the courtroom, Luxpro has come out on top, with the Shihlin District court claiming the two devices were "significantly dissimilar." With one win in the bag, Luxpro plans to countersue Jobs and Co. to the tune of $100M for the sales it lost due to the injunction. While this victory may send ripples through the copycat market, we doubt it will stop Apple from sending out the hounds lawyers again on other companies in the future.

[Via iLounge, thanks Jose L.]

[hybriid @ Jan 5th 2007 4:37PM]

Significantly dissimilar being the dirty white colour, blue logo and different button design but same icons and placement?

[TheCount @ Jan 5th 2007 4:50PM]

lol, so basically you're saying that the fact that they both have the same silhouette is enough to sue?

There are only so many ways to park play/pause/forward/back and only so many ways to place the buttons in a way that makes sense.

They were right to dismiss the suit if all we're talking about is the product design, the fact that they ripped off Apple's marketing look however, is a completely different thing.

[Ayle @ Jan 5th 2007 5:42PM]

Those icons are universal and for the placement I've got the same on my remote control and my Insignia mpplayer so.....those cant be used as arguments...

[andy @ Jan 5th 2007 4:39PM]

The hazards of doing business in China.


We just had a talk the other day about how their IP system was getting better and less dependent on insider dealings (i.e., bribes and family connections). It looks like that was all a bunch of talk.

I fail to see how it gets any more 'similar' than this.

[TheCount @ Jan 5th 2007 4:57PM]

Taiwan != China

[Jeff @ Jan 5th 2007 4:58PM]

Read the article closely. This is not communist China, this is Taiwan.

[Jamar @ Jan 6th 2007 8:56AM]

You're right- because I have relatives who supply materials to make Converse shoes, I get a heavy discount on them (about $10 for a pair). Same with others- one of my classmates has a part-time job at Motorola testing phones where he gets $50 a day sometimes because his parents work there (he's Brazilian/Japanese, though, not Chinese) and it's probably the reason I can find a Wii for sale in 5 different places in Shanghai while my dad went on a business trip to Japan recently and said that no store there had any in stock. I actually asked a shopkeeper his secret to having guaranteed stock for the Wii while other countries keep selling out of them. He said that some of the Wiis made are diverted from the factories to sell locally (Shanghai, China)- pay the right people and the shipping numbers can apparently be fooled with to make everything look normal to outsiders. So come to China if you can't find a Wii (but beware, no store sells the US version so you're playing games in Japanese) but be prepared to pay- I find them for about $300 at the lowest.

[Brian @ Jan 5th 2007 4:41PM]

As much as I dislike Apple, it *disgusts* that the court could be so corrupt. That is a bullshit ruling, if I've ever seen one.

[uNext @ Jan 5th 2007 4:45PM]

Wow i remember seeing the shuffle when apple released it and then seeing this one. My first reaction then was "HOLY SHIT THATS A 100% COPY OF THE SHUFFLE THEY WONT MAKE IT" and i did not hear from them.

And now i read that the copy company won against the company that fathered the design>?

Whats wrong with this picture? Holy shit lextor is obviously a complete copy of the shuffle. Was the judge blind? Or stupid?

[PloneX @ Jan 5th 2007 7:26PM]

no, the judge just use Zune... >:))

[morcheeba @ Jan 5th 2007 5:10PM]

TheCount - You can protect the "marketing look" of your product just like you can protect its technical design. This can be done with design patents ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent ) and trademarks. For example, no one copies the coca-cola bottle silhouette because it's trademarked.

[PreGHz @ Jan 5th 2007 10:30PM]

Last time I checked, Taiwan was not considered an independent nation.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0108020.html

It's a part of China. A province that uses Democracy, yes, but a province nonetheless. The US AND the UN both consider Taiwan part of China. That's not the point.

The point is, the legal system is pretty much the same. Democratic, Communist, doesn't matter. Corrupt is corrupt.

On another note, this is the perfect time to quote Armageddon. "American components, Russian components, all made in Taiwan!"

[Andrew Wood @ Jan 6th 2007 3:27AM]

Where did you look? It's not considered separate by the Chinese, but has a different government, rule of law, commercial set up, and national sports teams (who have to call themselves Chinese Taipei). So Taiwan!=China.

[Neil @ Jan 5th 2007 6:21PM]

"The hazards of doing business in China."

"It's all part of the communist thing."

If this was China, you would be right. But, this is Taiwan...

[L. M. Lloyd @ Jan 5th 2007 5:18PM]

Apple fanatics really disgust me! It is a different shade, the buttons are different, the proportions of the buttons in relation to each other and the device as a whole are different, it has the company logo right on the front, and it is only vaguely the same size. There is no way anyone would buy this thinking it was an Apple product. Are you seriously saying that any product housed in a white box with rounded corners should have to get Apple's approval before being allowed to go on the market?

Rather than throw around insults at the nation of Taiwan, the judicial system of said company, and the inhabitants of an entire region, why don't you instead ask yourself why you keep defending the "amazing design" of a company like Apple who puts everything in a generic white box with rounded corners?!

I mean, we are in a lot of trouble if companies like Apple can squash competition by designing the most generic product ever made, and then getting their competitor's products pulled from the shelves because they kind of resemble their generic product. For a bunch of people who croon about the "attention to detail" of Apple, you sure paint things with a pretty wide brush when it suits you.

[Joe @ Jan 5th 2007 5:25PM]

It's frightening to see people here like sergeij freud and L. M. Lloyd who think stealing others' designs is okay. Get educated. Let's not forget the original design that sparked the lawsuit:

http://www.engadget.com/2005/03/10/the-super-shuffle-huh/

[Logic @ Jan 5th 2007 5:34PM]

exactly @ morcheeba

if it walks like a shuffle and talks like a shuffle it's probably a shuffle

for them to dismiss the case is ridiculous

to say that there are only so many ways to place the control buttons is just as ridiculous

luxpro's design is damn near as close as they could get to copying apple's design with the exception of luxpro buying shuffles from apple and placing their logo on it

come on now get real

[sracer @ Jan 5th 2007 7:13PM]

Please. If button placement were a protected design element, then every DVD player, VCR, and cassette player/recorder would have to have a unique button layout.

what's next? Suing a keyboard company for the inverted "T" cursor key placement?

There are plenty of remote controls for A/V devices with similar layouts. Apple wasn't the first. What's next? Every remote control for every device needs to have buttons placed in unique configurations?

That's just silly.

[L. M. Lloyd @ Jan 5th 2007 6:10PM]

Actually, copying (because design is not a tangible item, it is an idea, so it can't be stolen) someone else's design is not illegal. In fact, even your beloved Apple does it.

http://www.macobserver.com/article/2005/11/07.4.shtml

What is illegal, is trying to represent your product as being made by someone else. The original Super Shuffle definitely ran against the fact that it was trying to represent itself as an actual iPod. However, they redesigned it, and after that, there is no reason the should have in any way restricted from being sold.

[Robert Preseau @ Jan 5th 2007 5:30PM]

from ilounge...

"Everyone please calm down. The news is simply reporting an announcement from the sued company itself. The real verdict is that the Luxpro is indeed copying ipod shuffle intentionally. The court is simply denying some requests(like provisional seizure) from Apple since the product has already been banned from stores.
Posted by Not True on January 5, 2007 at 2:24 AM (PDT)"

[god @ Jan 5th 2007 5:38PM]

I believe its apple that cannot innovate. They copied the chinese company.

[js @ Jan 5th 2007 7:15PM]

Chances are the macbook you are typing on right now is manufactured and designed in Taiwan.

Get your facts straight.

[Storm9 @ Jan 5th 2007 7:58PM]

JS, First off, im typing for a Sony Vaio with Windows XP.

And as far as I know all the apple products are designed in California.
For example check the back of your iPod.

Then the cheap chinese laborers build them.

[Robert @ Jan 5th 2007 5:47PM]

Apple succeeded in defeating them, anyway. Apple no longer sales the first gen iPod Shuffle that this company was copying. The new shuffle is smaller and better looking than the old one.

In terms of looks, this "Super Shuffle" is old hat (not that the first gen Shuffle was that great, anyway). For trend factor, no one wants something that looks like the old Shuffle (if they ever did). For functionality, the Shuffle, which lacks a screen, is just barely functional. I own one... finding a certain song is a nightmare, even with a 10 song playlist. If you cram extra features into it, it will be even less functional. Try finding a radio station that you may or may not have reception for without a screen to tell you what frequency you are on.

This thing now has no reason to exist. It isn't trendy looking anymore, and it still won't be as functional as the same device with a small screen. So, Apple wins by forcing them to sit out until they came out with the new design. I'm sure, as far as Apple is concerned, they aren't a threat any more.

[Ping @ Jan 5th 2007 6:05PM]

@ Robert

Apple wins? we'll see after we find out what happens in the $100M countersuit for "lost sales"

[Mike @ Jan 5th 2007 6:02PM]

Even though this is in Taiwan, this REEKS of Chinese involvement. Chinese "laws" are usually of the "selectively enforced" variety... unless, of course, you say something bad about the government. All of the sudden, they can find anyone, anywhere, any time, and throw them in one of their brainwashing gulags.

The Chinese (and their Taiwanese cohorts) are practicing a dangerously extreme form of capitalism. By allowing domestic companies to rip off multinationals left and right, they are effictively biting the hand that feeds.

It's just a matter of time before corporations wake up and start to pressure the government by threatening to pull out and ask that their host countries (i.e. the US and EU) place restrictions on foreign "competition."

Don't get me wrong, Taiwan are the Good Guys. The Chinese are not.

[Andy @ Jan 6th 2007 10:08AM]

dude, China and Taiwan are 2 diffrent goverment. one has nothing to do with the other. and who are you to say who is the good guy who is bad?

[E @ Jan 5th 2007 6:29PM]

HA HA

Blah blah blah blah... Apple blah blah blah...

[Time Magician @ Jan 5th 2007 6:32PM]

You don't even know what "communist" is. The court ruling was in Taiwan. The Taiwanese do not have a communist based government.

[Zomic13 @ Jan 5th 2007 6:41PM]

Haha. Great headline!

[david offbeat @ Jan 5th 2007 7:04PM]

Certain ideas should not be allowed to be trademarked, just think about how many technology related items look the same/very similar. Do you think Sony is going to sue Westinghouse for making a black t.v. with power/volume/menu buttons in the same spot?

[Igor @ Jan 5th 2007 7:25PM]

no, the judge just use Zune... :)))

[Technophile @ Jan 7th 2007 3:08PM]

Hopefully Apple will prevail in this. The lawsuit in question is from the original design. I'm glad Joe pointed this out. The photo above is not the one in question, eventhough you can clearly see the influence. No, the original desing which put their sales on the map was a direct copy, missing only the Apple logo and obviously to the trained eye not as high of quality. This is what pissed off Apple so much. People would buy these and then bad mouth Apple as if they designed the piece of crap. Read some of the reviews of these different iPod rip offs. In the photos they look 99.9% just like the iPods, even the packaging is the same! Color and all! But when they pick it up everyone who reviews these things state they feel like cheap junk. Apple had to sue them. If you don't believe me go ask you common everyday Joe on the street if they like your Zune, or Sansa etc. They'll ask you if it's one of those iPods. Most people can't tell the difference between a generic MP3 player and a iPod!

js...The MacBook, along with everything else Apple, is designed and engineered in only two places in the world - California and England. Taiwan just slaps them together.

The hair splitters stating this is Taiwan and not China. Wake up. Every big company in Taiwan or Malaysia is ran by the Chinese. Some companies are harder to trace back, but I know plenty of big business people in Taiwan and Malaysia and it always goes that way.

[tommy_b @ Jan 5th 2007 8:24PM]

i hope that all of you guys that realise that all three in the picture are fake. none of them are the real one. The one in the middle is the 'super tangent', the other two are 'super shuffles'.

[djnorto @ Jan 5th 2007 9:16PM]

Fascinating example of APPLE'S ongoing fight against reverse engineering. The real test would be in the dismantling and compatability engineered into the original. Does it "act" like an iPod when connected to a PC? This has been going on since the Apple II clone Franklin and there are more interesting examples of utilitarian appiances that EVERYONE uses which were reverse-engineered for cost-effective mass production. The use of courts to overrule or sustain objections is a healthy, dynamic process that should strive to keep innovation intact while ensuring livlihood for the bearers of intellectual property who secured the original patents. I surmise that Apple can't hold an exclusive right to a rounded rectangular player for more than five years, so their move to the clip-mount metallic player was timely and indicative of a utilitarian patent's limited life. As for Zune, that's my current WTF? It's screen is mounted sideways, it has wireless connectivity and it's five or more years behind Apple to the market penetration. Good luck, Bill. Ahem.

[tekdroid @ Jan 5th 2007 10:10PM]

excellent. I was looking for a product Oprah & Bono didn't endorse.

It looks very similar to the Shuffle, but I won't hold that against it ;)

Perhaps if Apple decided to add a voice recorder, SD cards and radio to their products instead of padding the pockets of laywers, we'd see some of the benefits of competition...

http://www.luxpro.com.tw/english/index.htm

[Al @ Jan 6th 2007 1:37AM]

So when Apple loses a court case, it's because of those corrupt communists in Taiwan(!?) who don't have a fricken moral bone in their body and have been paid off to make apple look bad. Get a life, apple fanboys. Maybe Apple should have been sued for trying to put two buttons on a mouse or that pathetic excuse for a mouse wheel. Maybe apple should be sued for placing a webcam in the centre of their laptop displays or perhaps (one day) making a phone that plays music. Maybe they should have been sued for using a hierarchical menu system on their ipods... no wait, they were and they lost! But I guess that isn't important because apple is never wrong and if they appear to be, it's because the whole world is against them. *sob*

[PreGHz @ Jan 6th 2007 12:58AM]

Al, no one is screaming corrupt because of Apple's design. We're screaming corrupt because the court sided with a company who made a direct rip-off.


If Creative came out with a player that didn't look like anything before it, and that product gets directly copied, couldn't Creative sue? Even if Apple wasn't in this picture, I would hope that people would still cry foul.

The Shuffles on the right and left of the Super Tangent are both ripoffs. They are called Super Shuffles, produced by this Taiwanese company. If you (Al) can still claim that Apple shouldn't have won this case, then you're an idiot.

No company in their right mind would let this blatant rip-off of their IP unpunished. And no court should have sided with the copiers.

From iLounge: "In early 2005, Luxpro introduced a digital audio player that was nearly indistinguishable from Apple’s first-generation iPod shuffle. The Super Shuffle, later renamed the Super Tangent, had the same measurements, weight and overall design—including the control pad, backside slider switches and USB port cover—of the iPod shuffle. It also came in 512MB and 1GB sizes like the Apple player."

[JohnD @ Jan 5th 2007 11:10PM]

Chinese&Taiwanese = copiers, disgrace to Asians

they are so gay.

[Al @ Jan 6th 2007 1:47AM]

@ PreGHZ - I didn't say anything about apple not having the right to sue. It just tickles me to see the masses of apple fanboys calling for blood everything something doesn't go their way. I couldn't give a s**t if this company is copying apple... the point is fanboys here start making the comments like Chinese=Taiwanese=communist=devil=corrupt=blah blah blah. Such generalisations belong in the school playground. Now according to Birch, apple did win this case, will we start seeing the praises of the justice system in Taiwan? Or are they still the devil reincarnate?

ps. ^sorry for the repost. Clicked on the wrong button.

[Birch @ Jan 6th 2007 1:18AM]

hey hi everyone i come from Hong Kong
according to a Chinese Forum, the Taiwanese company DID NOT WIN AT ALL
you guys may refer to this website:
http://0rz.tw/582ir
this document comes from the Shihlin District court....
well you guys may not read Chinese so let me summarise some points of the document:
Luxpro lost the lawsuit and the court forbid Luxpro and any 3rd party companies from producing, selling, displaying or promoting the "super tangent"

So, why there is such a rumor?
it is because the Taiwanese company send out a "news annoucement" to all the media in Taiwan and those media report the news as told that Luxpro won the lawsuit..........well....that's it......

so, apple didn't lose the copycat suit at all, it won!

[Dan S @ Jan 6th 2007 2:08AM]

Luxpro __LOST__ the case, a combination of a poorly translated news story and a ballsy press release by Luxpro has fooled everyone.

The info can be found in the comments here:
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/12175/

[PreGHz @ Jan 6th 2007 11:34AM]

They're still corrupt, even if Apple won this suit.

How does a president get charged with illegal use of funds, but then those charges magically disappear? Even when the misuse is blatant and well documented?

[Andrew Wood @ Jan 6th 2007 3:27AM]

Seconded - The current Taiwanese regime was set up by the nationalist Kuomintang FLEEING the communists. This is nothing to do with excusable communism and everything to do with inexcusable capitalism. But would they have sold $100m in a year? Not likely!

[PreGHz @ Jan 6th 2007 11:32AM]

The Taiwanese consider themselves an independent nation. And they have all the makings of one. But, the world doesn't recognize them as so because we are all China's economic b-word.

[Ben @ Jan 6th 2007 4:53AM]

Good and bad, apple only needed a 1 year injunction. They may be allowed to manufacture again but apple itself isnt making this version any more. Therefore they are not collecting money on their idea. I think this could have been a good point for them.

As for copying, if they can make the exact same product and get it to market enough times and do some lawsuit dodging then apple may have to lower its prices to meet that of the copies.

I just don't like multimillion dollar companies sueing the little guys. Its not like they are a real threat or anything.