14 DAY TRIAL // Chinese smartphone vendor Digione is planning an attack on Apple after determining that the iPhone 6 smartphone line infringes on its own design. The Cupertino company has yet to respond to these allegations, but Digione seems determined to sue.
A letter from Digione’s attorney published to Weibo.com suggests that the Chinese firm is looking to settle, rather than sue. It claims that it had come up with the same design that the iPhone 6 has before Apple’s handset hit the market.
Patented design
Digione alleges that a design patent, granted to the firm by China’s State Intellectual Property Office in July, describes a design that is all too familiar to today’s iPhone 6 owners. Because of this, it wants to have a little chat with Apple. Nothing serious. Just to clarify who came up with it first.
The letter signed by Digione’s attorney (where the firm is referred to as Baili) states that “On the basis of the information from a preliminary investigation through public channels, as well as professional legal analysis, it can be preliminarily concluded that the design of Apple’s mobile device with the brand name ‘iPhone 6,’ which will be officially released recently [sic], may infringe one of Baili’s Chinese patents with the application number 201430009113.9 (mobile phone).”
It claims that it notified Apple of this problem in advance, but didn’t receive a response. The patent was reportedly filed in January of 2014 and was granted later in summer.
The wording in the letter suggests that Digione considers it an honest mistake rather than a blatant copy and that it wishes to engage in calm discussions with the higher-ups at Apple to resolve this dispute out of court.
It further states that “As the designers and manufacturers of mobile communication devices, based on the respect to intellectual property and each other’s legitimate rights and interests, we believe that a communication with goodwill would contribute to solving potential legal disputes, achieving benign competition and providing better products to consumers.”
Inspired from Apple’s leaks?
As much as Apple loves China and the numbers generated in that market, it also has a lot of reasons to dislike some practices in the Far East. Such as the tremendous number of copycats stealing its designs on a regular basis.
It could well be that Digione caught a glimpse of an iPhone 6 chassis before it went into production, or at least happened upon some leaked schematics, which isn’t too far-fetched since it happens every year, and 2014 was no exception.
That being said, the design of Digione’s device doesn’t indicate a crude clone. However, the phone’s coloring – silver, gray, and gold – and its promo materials seem to be heavily inspired from Apple.
