Chinese Company Learns From The West: Builds Up Big Patent Portfolio, Uses It To Sue Apple In China

from the just-as-Techdirt-predicted dept

For many years now, Western governments have been complaining about China's supposed lack of respect for intellectual monopolies, and constantly pushing the country's politicians to tighten the legal framework protecting them. To anyone not blinded by an unquestioning belief in the virtues of copyright and patent maximalism, it was pretty clear where this strategy would end. Indeed, over five years ago, Mike warned where this was leading: towards China repeatedly punishing foreign companies to protect domestic Chinese firms -- in other words, leveraging patents as a tool for protectionism. A post on the IAM blog about legal action taken by the Chinese company BYD, one of Apple's suppliers, shows that Techdirt's predictions are well on the way to being realized:

Apple says BYD filed a pair of patent infringement suits in the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court alleging that the antennae in the iPhone 6 plus and various other Apple products infringe BYD’s intellectual property.
Five other defendants working with Apple were also sued -- four Chinese suppliers, and one Chinese distributor.
BYD asked the [Chinese] bench to require "all six defendants to both cease allegedly infringing conduct and destroy allegedly infringing products".
In effect, this is a patent attack on Apple's supply chain in China, and one that would be devastating for the US company if successful. The IAM post points out:
Of the seven final assembly facilities for iPhones, only one is outside of China (a Foxconn facility in Sao Paolo, Brazil). That means any company with valid Chinese patents that it thinks reads on Apple products potentially has a lot of leverage.
There are two crucial elements that make Apple so vulnerable here. First, the fact that its assembly facilities are concentrated in China, and secondly, because there's a Chinese company with patents it thinks it can use against Apple in that country. A March 2014 press release from BYD boasted that it had already amassed more than 12,000 domestic patents and over 8,000 international ones; the figures today are doubtless much higher. Amongst those domestic patents there are probably many that could come in handy for future legal action against other Western companies that assemble their products in China.

Those in the West who pushed China to show more "respect" for patents must be feeling so proud of the progress that Chinese companies have made in this regard, and so pleased now to see Apple being sued in local courts using China's patent laws.

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Filed Under: china, intellectual monopolies, intellectual property, patent thicket, patents, smartphones
Companies: apple, byd, foxconn


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  1. icon
    Ehud Gavron (profile), 24 Nov 2015 @ 4:19pm

    Well said

    Great summary of the chickens coming home to roost!

    Ehud
    Tucson AZ US

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. icon
    Violynne (profile), 25 Nov 2015 @ 3:12am

    In effect, this is a patent attack on Apple's supply chain in China, and one that would be devastating for the US company if successful.
    I don't see a problem here.

    Live by the sword, die by the sword.

    I chuck this one up to poetic justice.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. icon
    That One Guy (profile), 25 Nov 2015 @ 3:21am

    Re:

    I don't see a problem here.

    Problem? Problem? I'll tell you what the problem is, it's been so long since we had a good comedy article that I'm out of popcorn, and will have to go and get some more!

    This is a serious issue, how am I supposed to enjoy the schadenfreude to it's fullest on an empty stomach?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2015 @ 3:55am

    if apple is a US company then why would they care about a patent troll in a foreign far tyranny??
    Because apple is more chinese than "american"?
    BY ANY scale?
    if apple paid taxes in the US or had real employees (not only sales kids and "geniuses" then this could be a problem.
    but apple is just a foreign stock with lots of stores in the us

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2015 @ 3:58am

    they can always deploy the "thinkpad" approach

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Annonimus, 25 Nov 2015 @ 4:01am

    The global bubble is starting to pop

    The Chinese are doing this because there is no longer enough money to go around for both Apple and the Chinese manufacturers, so the manufacturers will take their production of Apple products and export it cheaper than Apple does.

    I'm really curious if Apple will adapt or if it will crash and burn, but either way cheap Chinese corporations are going to become competition to the USian corporations instead of what the partners they were so far.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Yes, I know I'm commenting anonymously, 25 Nov 2015 @ 4:02am

    Short term effects

    If successful, the catch-22 will only last a short time.
    Apple is powerful enough to quickly set up factories elsewhere.
    Then China will lose a lot of manufacturing and the cycle will start again in another country.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. icon
    Richard (profile), 25 Nov 2015 @ 4:05am

    Re:

    Live by the sword, die by the sword.

    The preceding verse says "put your sword away". A pity that the US pro-patent lobby don't read their bibles.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. icon
    Richard (profile), 25 Nov 2015 @ 4:08am

    Re: Short term effects

    But China is a big market (soon if not already the biggest single market in the world). If Apple can't sell there then they are in big trouble.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2015 @ 4:26am

    I'm sure the copyright maximalists will just pay their pocket political puppets to set up a global copyright regime to stop this sort of thing from happening. There can be no law but Corporate America law.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2015 @ 4:57am

    I am aware the tax breaks and subsidies apple gets must be dark deep state sh!t...
    but lets say we could get that into the equation...
    Who pays more in salaries within the USA? apple or BYD?
    Who paid more in taxes within the USA in 2014? (minus subsidies)
    Who is going to pay more in taxes within the USA in 2017?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2015 @ 4:58am

    Re: Short term effects

    where? in Detroit?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  13. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2015 @ 5:03am

    Re:

    China is getting too expensive anyway so where to next for the apple manufacturing machine?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  14. identicon
    the news, 25 Nov 2015 @ 5:05am

    next in the news...

    tiny chinese garage supplier of apple iphone screen coating buys apple in a stock swap program

    this brilliant genius arrangement allowed the company to dodge any taxes, and transfer HQs to china without any legal difficulties.

    and the CEO gets a billion bonus this year...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  15. icon
    That One Guy (profile), 25 Nov 2015 @ 5:09am

    Re:

    Why does any of the above matter?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  16. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2015 @ 5:13am

    Re:

    and google does an stock swap program with a military software supplier in the german tax free island of Heligoland...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  17. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2015 @ 5:20am

    International Patents?

    Where does one apply for an international patent?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  18. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2015 @ 5:20am

    Re: Re:

    because the article forces the idea that
    apple is a "US company" and BYD is a "chinese company"

    when actually Buffet could be equally investing in both,
    and both could be registered as charity foundations in PO boxes in the same house in Lichtenstein.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  19. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2015 @ 5:37am

    Re: Re: Re:

    apple and BYD could ALREADY own big chunks of each other??

    link to this | view in thread ]

  20. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2015 @ 5:38am

    with the lawyers of double irish dutch sandwich bermuda blackhole international office

    link to this | view in thread ]

  21. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2015 @ 5:43am

    Re: Re:

    an old offshore oil platform?
    or a floating old cheap oil tanker?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  22. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2015 @ 6:40am

    Re: Re: Re:

    Nah, no easily available cheap labor available on those.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  23. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2015 @ 6:47am

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    just google "Blueseed"

    link to this | view in thread ]

  24. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2015 @ 6:51am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    or SeaCode
    the problem is they want to force the cheap labor to subsidize for the project, who by definition are well under-payed

    link to this | view in thread ]

  25. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2015 @ 6:59am

    Re: Re: Short term effects

    or in Ferguson?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  26. icon
    Oblate (profile), 25 Nov 2015 @ 7:02am

    Re: Re: Re:

    No good, those are all soon to be claimed by China as sovereign territory.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  27. icon
    Mason Wheeler (profile), 25 Nov 2015 @ 7:08am

    Re: Well said

    Yup. It couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of guys.

    Live by the suit, die by the suit!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  28. identicon
    Dingledore the Flabberghaster, 25 Nov 2015 @ 7:15am

    Re: Short term effects

    Where, do you suggest, could Apple move to that would offer a comparatively cheap workforce? North Korea?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  29. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2015 @ 7:51am

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    or by whoever owns the US ports (as in NOT the USA)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  30. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2015 @ 7:54am

    Re: Re: Short term effects

    to any private US prison?
    I know, it is brilliant!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  31. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2015 @ 8:02am

    this is clearly a case of the

    "our German lawyers are better than their German lawyers" type

    * "jewish" ommited for PC reasons

    link to this | view in thread ]

  32. icon
    Keroberos (profile), 25 Nov 2015 @ 8:10am

    Re: Short term effects

    Apple is powerful enough to quickly set up factories elsewhere.
    Nope, setting up new tech factories is not something that can be done quickly or cheaply. Apple would be looking at about 5 years just to get all the paperwork,picking a site with a large population of tech savvy workforce , getting infrastructure built, plant design, permits, and all the other stuff they need to do before they could even break ground and start building (which could add another 5 or more years to the project depending on any delays). So about 10 years to bring their manufacturing in-house. And none of this addresses the fact that their products could be (or are) infringing on someone's patents in China, which is very quickly becoming a market you need to cater to.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  33. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2015 @ 8:25am

    Re: Re: Short term effects

    or you can call the Germans,
    they can build a mongrel-proof high tech plant anywhere in a year tops...
    for the right price

    link to this | view in thread ]

  34. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2015 @ 8:52am

    google : warren buffet byd

    link to this | view in thread ]

  35. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2015 @ 9:43am

    Re: International Patents?

    There is no such thing as an international patent.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  36. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2015 @ 10:30am

    Anonymous sceptic

    legal action taken by the Chinese company BYD, one of Apple's suppliers,

    Which raises the question, how many of their patents come from looking at Apples specification?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  37. icon
    JoeCool (profile), 25 Nov 2015 @ 10:41am

    Re:

    Because all but one assembly plant for Apple products are in China. If China wins their patent suit (in China against a foreign company), all those assembly plants have to quit making iPhones and destroy all stock not yet shipped. It's a HUGE potential disaster for Apple. They won't be able to ship enough iPhones to meet demands. My guess is the Chinese company holding the patent will force Apple to pay a big fee per phone to settle. They have Apple over a barrel.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  38. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2015 @ 11:41am

    Money will fix it

    Apple will pay the extortion... I mean license the Chinese patent and all will be good in apple land again.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  39. icon
    NaBUru38 (profile), 25 Nov 2015 @ 2:44pm

    Well, BYD is famous forbuilding cheap copies of cars by Peugeot and Toyota...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  40. identicon
    any moose cow word, 25 Nov 2015 @ 4:28pm

    Re: Re:

    As if Apple products weren't overpriced as it is...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  41. identicon
    any moose cow word, 25 Nov 2015 @ 4:31pm

    Re: Re: Re: Short term effects

    And they'd brag about bringing "jobs" back to the USA too.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  42. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2015 @ 10:41pm

    Kind of hard to have sympathy for apple here. They take tax benefits and promise to make the factories local, but instead they then ship the jobs overseas for a bigger profit on top of the tax cuts.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  43. icon
    Ninja (profile), 26 Nov 2015 @ 2:53am

    Re: Re:

    They have Apple over a barrel.

    Hope this sets off some alarms and the US starts pushing for a saner, functional system.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  44. icon
    That One Guy (profile), 26 Nov 2015 @ 3:59am

    Re: Re: Re:

    Not a chance.

    Those that insist that the patent system is all sunshine and roses, without any downsides, will either just ignore the issue, pretending it's not happening, or find some way to claim that while this is an abuse of the patent system, when applied 'properly'(that is used against small companies/inventors rather than large companies) the patent system is infallible, and nothing but good.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  45. icon
    John Fenderson (profile), 26 Nov 2015 @ 7:11am

    Re:

    "apple is just a foreign stock with lots of stores in the us"

    Apple outsources all its manufacturing offshore, but it does most product development in the US. Those are real engineering jobs, not retail.

    Apple is pretty much a multinational now. It's no more a Chinese company than it is a US company. It's independent of nationality. This is how most large corporations are.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  46. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 26 Nov 2015 @ 8:20am

    Re: Re: Re:

    Abolish patents. Period.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  47. identicon
    Kronomex, 26 Nov 2015 @ 12:50pm

    Sounds more like a case of the brown envelopes from Apple aren't thick enough and a "request" to increase them was refused so now it's revenge time.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  48. identicon
    aerilus, 27 Nov 2015 @ 3:01am

    we patented the bullet now you make them so we can shoot you with them if you ever question that we own them.

    a primate would give you an accurate guess on how this is going to turn out.......

    link to this | view in thread ]

  49. identicon
    Wendy Cockcroft, 27 Nov 2015 @ 7:48am

    Re: Re: Well said

    Please don't tell me the rationale for this was the "Dumb foreigners" trope!

    China invented many of the things we take for granted, including paper and fireworks. They were light years ahead of us for centuries until their civilisation began to implode from stagnation and corruption. I daresay the Opium Wars and aftermath didn't help. To even imagine, then, that these people would fall for an "Emperor's New Clothes" type scam is ridiculous in the extreme. I reckon that the minute they heard about "Intellectual property" they crept away to have a damn good laugh, then pretended to have fallen for it.

    This is why exceptionalism is so damn pointless.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  50. identicon
    Jeffrey, 27 Nov 2015 @ 9:08am

    One detail is being overlooked for all those ideas to move the technology factories out of China. Cheap labor is not the only reason to locate in China.
    Rare earth minerals. Available only in China.
    Better start looking for a better place to dig dig dig.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  51. identicon
    Andrew D. Todd, 27 Nov 2015 @ 10:56am

    The Parallel Area of Movies.

    The same process is happening in Hollywood. You might look at this:
    --------------------------------------------------
    Willy Shih and Henry McGee, Hollywood on the Yellow Sea: Wang Jianlin, one of China’s richest men, is creating a rival to the American dream factory, from scratch.

    http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/12/hollywood-on-the-yellow-sea/413185/
    ----- ---------------------------------------

    A Chinese zillionaire, more or less government-backed, is instituting a takeover and outsourcing of Hollywood. All the Chinese really want from the United States are the movie stars. They are building a special "cinema city" for the movie stars to live in. Movies which are very expensive to make are generally suited to children, or to naive third-world audiences. Ingmar Bergman, the archetypal grown-up film-maker, never spent very much money, because he didn't blow things up. The American movie theater market is effectively stalled at about four tickets and thirty dollars per person per year, not even a dollar a week. What this reflects is that most Americans are comfortable at home, and don't see any reason to go out to a movie house. Chinese are not as rich as Americans, but they are much more likely to go to movies. Someone who lives in _barracks_ conditions, like many Chinese workers, finds a movie house more comfortable than his barracks. Someone who has a comfortable home also has room for all kinds of _stuff_. He can own various kinds of tools, and amuse himself by making things. Someone who lives in a barracks must, perforce, keep all his belongings in a satchel and/or a locker. This implies a preference for simple and passive entertainments. Thus, the Chinese are becoming the main market for movies. And they have no intention of paying significant foreign exchange for them.

    Something roughly similar tends to operate for a tablet computer. There is no very compelling case to use a tablet computer at home. Video games are best played when sitting down (and not while driving-- emphatically not while driving). Beyond a certain threshold, there is no compelling case for a more powerful tablet computer. The kind of people who will eventually push the performance on tablet computers will be those who do not have a place to sit down of their own, for example, someone who spends hours a day, riding in a crowded bus. You can play with a tablet computer under those circumstances, but you cannot do either gardening or carpentry.

    It has been estimated that "Chinese-manufactured" electronics are only about five percent Chinese by value-added, and if we take valued-added-by-manufacturing, as distinct from risk assumption, the figure would be more like one percent. Most of the money goes for buying chips and other "clean room" components imported from outside China, and then for software and marketing in the country where the machine is eventually sold. In the field of mechanical watches, there is the notion of a "movement," that is, a dial, and hands, and the gears to make them turn, manufactured as a single unit which fits into an artistically designed case. What I think may happen is that chip-makers, such as Intel, may begin to sell "tablet movements," assembled by machines with essentially zero human labor. A "tablet movement" would include a screen, and processor, memory, etc., bonded to the back of the screen, but it wouldn't have any externally visible label, and it would fit into a standard-sized case which would have a label. The automated factories which produce "tablet movements" would be proximate to chip fabs, which are mostly not in China. Chip fabs do not require cheap labor, you see. Indeed, chip fabs cannot tolerate cheap labor. People have to breathe, and their breath inevitably contaminates the chip-making process. A lot of the small components which China has learned to produce, things like cheap small capacitors and resistors, will be rendered irrelevant by the consolidation of systems into fewer and fewer chips, the so-called "System on a Chip" concept Probably, Intel would be able to obtain funding to set up the necessary factories from the United States Government, on National Security grounds.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_on_a_chip

    China has not been very successful in off-shoring American chip fabs. That is political in the highest degree, and is likely to provoke government intervention. The are a lot of chip fabs in the United States, and a lot in Europe (especially Germany), and a lot in Japan and South Korea, and a lot in Taiwan, and a lot in Singapore. All of them, even the ones in Taiwan, are effectively out of China's military reach. China will continue to struggle towards the point where it does not have to import chips, but it will be a slow process.

    Of course, Apple is now more like Universal Studios than it is like Intel. It is not really indispensable to a government which wants to control the thoughts of the users. The Chinese government will see Apple primarily in terns of the App Store, a system of censorship which they want to convert to their own uses.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  52. icon
    JBDragon (profile), 30 Nov 2015 @ 4:48pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    They are? Based on what? You not liking the prices? Apple can charge anything they want like any other company. Supply and Demand. Just because making Android phones makes you zero money when Apple is making over 90% of the Smartphone profits and everyone else raced to the bottom fighting it out and are now not making money is not Apple's fault. Android is a Commodity now. My iPhone will hold it's value far great and when I upgrade, get far more for it then any Android phone.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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