Is It Patent Infringement To Reuse Recycled Apple Magsafe Connectors?

from the patent-exhaustion dept

AppleInsider has the details of yet another patent infringement lawsuit filed by Apple, who has become a lot more aggressive on the patent front lately. This lawsuit is against Sanho, a company that makes a variety of external batteries for Apple products. There are six patents listed in the lawsuit, but two are design patents, which are pretty narrow. The four (really three) utility patents are

• 7,517,222: Magnetic connector for electronic device
• 7,627,343 & 7,751,853 (really the same patent, as one is a continuation of the other: Female receptacle data pin connector
• 7,783,070: Cable adapter for a media player system

All of them, obviously, have to do with the connectors Apple uses to charge its various products, including the famed "MagSafe" charger found on Apple laptops that connect via a magnet, which break away easily (such as if someone trips over the cord). I do remember when this first came out, that Apple indicated it had patented up the technology and would block others from using it.

However, where this gets interesting is that, according to Sanho's website, it doesn't make its own magnetic connectors, but simply recycles official Apple connectors:

"Our charging cables use original Apple MagSafe connectors for maximum compatibility,"

If that's the case, it seems to raise some questions about patent exhaustion, where a company can't license a patent for one player in a supply chain, but then claim that later buyers, who are buying from the original licensee need to re-license the patent. Think of it as being similar to the principle of "first sale" in copyright. I would think that, on those connectors at the very least, Sanho could make a case for patent exhaustion if it really is just buying up official Apple MagSafe connectors and repurposing them.

Filed Under: first sale, magsafe, patent exhaustion, patents
Companies: apple, sanho