{"id":41024,"date":"2023-11-08T14:02:17","date_gmt":"2023-11-08T19:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=41024"},"modified":"2023-11-08T14:02:17","modified_gmt":"2023-11-08T19:02:17","slug":"apples-trademark-exploit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2023\/11\/08\/apples-trademark-exploit\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple&rsquo;s Trademark Exploit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.giovanh.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/26\/apples-trademark-exploit\/\">GiovanH<\/a> (via <a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=38171648\">Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/blog.giovanh.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/26\/apples-trademark-exploit\/\">\n<p>Apple puts its logo on the devices it sells: not just the outer casing, but also each internal component. The vast majority of these logos are totally enclosed and invisible to the naked eye. This seems like a strange practice &mdash; especially since Apple doesn&rsquo;t sell these parts separately &mdash; except it turns out to be part of a truly convoluted rules-lawyering exploit only a company like Apple could pull off and get away with.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Apple participates in CBP&rsquo;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbp.gov\/trade\/priority-issues\/ipr\/protection\">e-Recordation Program<\/a>, a &ldquo;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.uspto.gov\/trademarks\/protect\/customs-and-border-protection\">service for trademark owners<\/a>&rdquo; where American rightsholders proactively re-register their US registered trademarks with CBP and pay regular fees to ensure special, stricter enforcement on the particular trademarks they request.\nIn exchange, Apple gets to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbp.gov\/trade\/priority-issues\/ipr\/bestpractices\"><em>train law enforcement themselves<\/em><\/a>; owners of registered marks can record webinars, and companies like Apple literally get to send their own staff to give Border Patrol in-person seminars on how to identify their products and what all they want counted as infringing.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Repair shop owner Jessa Jones purchased third-party iPhone screens for use in repair, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vice.com\/en\/article\/evk4wk\/dhs-seizes-iphone-screens-jessa-jones\">but the shipment from China was seized by CBP<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>The screens that were seized are &ldquo;hybrid&rdquo; parts: the screens are third-party, but use a few original Apple parts like a flex cable that connects the screen to the phone. That invisible, internal part is marked with an Apple logo, which is enough to let the CBP seize the entire shipment. <\/p>\n<p>The parts aren&rsquo;t being seized because they&rsquo;re counterfeit. In fact, they&rsquo;re demonstrably <em>not<\/em> counterfeit: the only reason an Apple logo is on a piece of a &ldquo;third-party&rdquo; component is because that piece <em>is<\/em> original <abbr title=\"Original Equipment Manufacturer\">OEM<\/abbr> Apple hardware being legally re-sold[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2023\/08\/25\/apple-supports-california-right-to-repair-bill\/\">Apple Supports California Right-to-Repair Bill<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/05\/apple-discouraging-photo-recovery-from-damaged-devices\/\">Apple Discouraging Photo Recovery From Damaged Devices<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2004\/01\/12\/habeas\/\">Habeas<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>GiovanH (via Hacker News): Apple puts its logo on the devices it sells: not just the outer casing, but also each internal component. The vast majority of these logos are totally enclosed and invisible to the naked eye. This seems like a strange practice &mdash; especially since Apple doesn&rsquo;t sell these parts separately &mdash; except [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-11-08T19:02:25Z","apple_news_api_id":"df7fe7d3-4ce9-4865-816c-9bc61fa3c801","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-11-08T19:02:25Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A33_n00zpSGWBbJvGH6PIAQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[38,85,209,1365,1860],"class_list":["post-41024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-apple","tag-iphone","tag-legal","tag-trademark","tag-unauthorized-repair"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41024"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41025,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41024\/revisions\/41025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}