CBP So Confused It Seizes Clearly Labeled OnePlus Earbuds, And Falsely Claims They're Counterfeit Apple Airpods

from the can't-tell-your-ass-from-a... dept

Homeland Security and its various sub-organizations have a fairly tragic history of seizing things they shouldn't, claiming that non-infringing works are "counterfeits." And DHS continues to cluelessly push out press releases that only highlight how ignorant they are regarding the basics of the very laws they're supposed to be enforcing.

Usually, our posts on this subject focus on ICE, but it appears that its sister organization, Customs and Border Patrol, wants to get in on the act as well. Last week, CBP put out a ridiculous press release proudly claiming to have "seized" counterfeit Apple Airpods at JFK.

On August 31, CBP officers seized 2,000 counterfeit Apple Airpod Earbuds from Hong Kong destined for Nevada at an air cargo facility located at John F. Kennedy International Airport. If the merchandise were genuine, the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) would have been $398,000.

“CBP Officers are protecting the American public from various dangers on a daily basis,” said Troy Miller, Director of CBP’s New York Field Operations. “The interception of these counterfeit earbuds is a direct reflection of the vigilance and commitment to mission success by our CBP Officers daily.”

Because at some point, CBP may wise up and delete this press release, here's an archived version.

To understand why this is laughable, you have to see the pictures of the seized "counterfeit" Airpods. Conveniently, clueless people at CBP decided to tweet it out:

In case you can't see that tweet and the pictures, those are very clearly and accurately labeled as OnePlus Buds. OnePlus is a popular maker of Android mobile phones (I have one!) and accessories. It may be true that OnePlus's bluetooth earbuds look somewhat similar to Apple's Airpods, but that's true of lots of different Bluetooth earbuds, and since the packaging here clearly shows that these are from OnePlus and not at all attempting to mimic or pretend to be Apple packaging, suggests that CBP, yet again, has seized legitimate products while stupidly insisting that they're counterfeit.

OnePlus even responded to CBP on Twitter:

It's almost depressing how bad DHS, CBP, and ICE are the jobs we've given them. Perhaps it's time to just do away with all of them.

Filed Under: airpods, cbp, competition, counterfeit, dhs, seizures
Companies: apple, oneplus

Do Apple Trademarks Reveal What It's About To Launch?

from the foiled-by-trademarks dept

If you're a gadget watcher or an Apple fanatic, then you already know that tomorrow is Apple's big fall event when it announces new hardware products. Unlike basically every other tech blog in the world, we tend not to cover the announcements (or all of the rumors leading up to those announcements). Every so often something interesting will come out of them and we'll write up that, but for the most part, we recognize that other sites are going to cover the basic beats and we're not the kind of publication that wants to spend our time writing up promotional copy for tech companies. But, sometimes there's some overlap in our usual coverage and these kinds of events. Brian Conroy, a trademark lawyer in Ireland who has a fun blog of trademark-related issues realized that Apple may have leaked some details via its trademark applications.

For example, while there are rumors of three new iPhones, Conroy notes that Apple has only applied for two trademarks related to the iPhone 7: "iPhone 7" and "iPhone 7 Plus." That doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't a third option, but the trademark applications seem to suggest only two. Conroy has also dug deep into global trademark filings to basically prove that Apple is the company behind the trademark filing for "Airpods" which many expect to be the name of the new earbuds or something similar that Apple may announce. The trademark itself was noticed a long time ago, filed for a company named "Entertainment in Flight LLC," presumed to be a dummy corporation set up by Apple. But Conroy goes further and shows that Apple may have slipped up in hiding some of this, and that the same Airpods trademark filing in countries like Norway, Malaysia and India came directly from Apple -- and the one in Malaysia points back to the original Entertainment in Flight filing in the US -- more or less proving that Entertainment in Flight is really Apple. Here's Conroy's video explaining this: Trademark law: finally useful for something.

Filed Under: airpods, brian conroy, iphone, trademark
Companies: apple