Hacker News Reader

Comment by derefr | Hacker News Reader

Apple already has some sort of sweetheart deal with US Customs that gets Apple parts shipped from China rejected at import time unless they're part of an Apple-tracked shipment. This blocks devices have been third-party-repaired in China from being re-imported; but also blocks "ghost-shift" (but otherwise first-party!) Apple parts from coming into the country. Literally, anything that looks like an Apple part, but isn't an Apple part according to Apple, gets blocked. Think about the implications of that.

If you can't even import a real part into the US from the very same Chinese factory that the "officially-supplied" parts would be shipped from, then I doubt you'll be able to import those parts from the Cook Islands.

View on HN

> "Literally, anything that looks like an Apple part, but isn't an Apple part according to Apple, gets blocked. Think about the implications of that."

The implication is that we are correctly enforcing trademark law... Or are you saying that anyone should be allowed to import anything with anyone's brand on it? Because congratulations, you have now destroyed the value and purpose of every single trademark.

Remember, the issue was NOT that they "looked like" Apple parts, the issue was that the parts had an actual Apple logo printed on them when they were not parts sourced through Apple.

This is just the stupidest issue. All Louis Rossmann had to do is purchase his non-genuine third party laptop batteries without an Apple logo printed on them, and he would have been legally entitled to them. He could have his batteries, he could perform the repairs, everyone would be happy.

With his complaint he is effectively saying is that trademarks mean shit and anyone can use anyone else's brand whenever they want. It's absurd. And it's a loser case. If he tries to fight Apple, he won't win.

> The implication is that we are correctly enforcing trademark law... Or are you saying that anyone should be allowed to import anything with anyone's brand on it?

I think what's being said (well, implied) is that the first-sale doctrine states that those trademark rights are limited, and that by blocking imports, those right may be being violated (specifically, the right to resell).

If that's the case, that would mean that we are incorrectly enforcing trademark law.

Edit: To make it absolutely clear what I'm talking about, if I as a U.S. citizen go to China, and I have some used iphones, and I try to ship them to the U.S. after people buy them from me, does Apple's special handling prevent me from reselling Apple products? If so, that may be violating my rights.

I agree with the first sale doctrine.

In the cases which have been popularised in the media recently, we're talking about products where a "first sale" has not occurred.

> we're talking about products where a "first sale" has not occurred.

Well, you seemed to distill the initial point to that, and then reject it, but I didn't interpret it as something so specific at all. Essentially it looked like a Straw Man argument.

If the details of this are specifically linked to that case, and there's no indication that it's happening to other types of shipment (a weakening of the original points presented that you responded to), that should have been specifically noted (is it? I don't know. I haven't been following this). Otherwise, you aren't really addressing the same thing as the comment you responded to (unless derefr is specifically talking about this incident, without mentioning this incident. That's possible).

I'm responding specifically to the cases which have hit the media in the past few weeks and months.

I'm not interested in arguing hypotheticals. If there's a specific incident that you want me to remark on, I'll be happy to provide my opinion on it.

According to the phrasing of the complaint, it was the use of the Apple logo on the batteries and not the batteries themselves that CBP took issue with. “It is assumed that if something has that Apple logo on it, it must be counterfeit,” Rossmann said. “It couldn't be that someone who has these batteries sold them to me. It couldn’t be that someone took these batteries out of machines that were on demo in stores….machines that they owned, packaged them up and sent them to me,” Rossmann said. “No, they must be counterfeit. There’s no other explanation for it.” [1]

It is possibly the items were counterfeit. But the information as presented does not make that case. They've been called refurbished. Until a case is made that they are counterfeit that includes more evidence than "it has an Apple logo on it", it makes sense to assume they were not given the statements about their providence.

So all my arguments to this point can be taken to apply to this specific case, and you can feel free to provide your opinion.

1: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a3ppvj/dhs-seized...

I'm not familiar with Rossman's battery case, but those same laws have been used to stop shipments of refurbished Apple parts. I believe it was iPad Rehab this happened to most famously. They would disassemble an iPhone, send the display assembly (broken glass, LCD intact) to China, they would replace the glass and send it back. Because the LCD had an Apple logo on it, it was seized. But the LCD was genuine - it came directly out of an iPhone. That's equivalent to stopping the sale of a used car, just because it had the tires replaced with third-party ones, but still bares the maker's logo.

To my knowledge they had Apple logos because they were Apple products.

Maybe there's more to it but that's what I understood so far.

Removing the Apple logo from Apple products in order to ship them to the states so they can be used to fix Apple products seems unnecessary.

Louis Rossmann has said himself that he commissioned the batteries from a factory in China that was no longer authorized to make those batteries, because likely they lost the bid/contract to do so.

https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/9pow06/louis_rossman...

That makes the parts counterfeit if they bear an Apple logo. All Louis had to do is source the exact same parts without the Apple logo printed on them. That's not difficult, nor is it unreasonable.

> "Removing the Apple logo from Apple products in order to ship them to the states so they can be used to fix Apple products seems unnecessary."

Putting an Apple logo on something that is not an Apple product seems unnecessary.

These parts are not Apple products. In order for a product to be an Apple product, it has to have been sold by, through or under license from Apple at some point in its life.

These were not, which makes them counterfeit by definition. They might be perfectly identical to the real thing, they might be slightly inferior, or they might be dangerous junk. You don't know.

Wasn't the whole point of the Louis Rossmann imports and similar stories with LCD screens a few months back that these were in fact refurbished Apple products? From what I've read they had the Apple logo on a connector or something because that part of the product was original. In the car analogy, if I repair my car by replacing or refurbishing a broken part and clearly stating that fact when I resell it, would that make it a counterfeit car?

The purpose of trademarks should fundamentally be to ensure the consumer is fully aware of just what they are buying, it should never be to prevent purchases.

A consumer should always, 100% be able to purchase a "counterfeit" product should they so desire it.

”Literally, anything that looks like an Apple part, but isn't an Apple part according to Apple, gets blocked”

If importing Apple-labeled products that aren’t Apple‘s property nor have been sold by Apple were legal, Apple couldn’t outsource production, as it would be undercut by its own manufacturers.

So, I don’t see why, in general, you should be able to ”import a real part into the US from the very same Chinese factory that the "officially-supplied" parts would be shipped from”, if you didn’t buy it from Apple.

> If importing Apple-labeled products that aren’t Apple‘s property nor have been sold by Apple

That's moving the goal post. The original statement said "looks like an Apple part", and now you're assuming it was never sold by Apple.

How is customs to know the difference of whether it's original unsold inventory or refurbished inventory? I have a well defined legal right to sell an iPhone I own (whether bought from Apple or some other entity, as long as it originated from an Apple sale). I'm not sure why it should matter if I ship it internationally or not (that is to say, it should not matter, as long as it's an original device and not a copy).

> Apple couldn’t outsource production, as it would be undercut by its own manufacturers.

My rights should not be curtailed because the market needs of a single company.

> So, I don’t see why, in general, you should be able to ”import a real part into the US from the very same Chinese factory that the "officially-supplied" parts would be shipped from”, if you didn’t buy it from Apple.

As a separate issue, since it's a specific sub-part of the original claims, if the parts are not patented and do not display a trademarked logo, they should not be blocked, but I don't know if the specific case you are alluding refrained from adding a logo.

That said, if the batteries were repaired at the factory, and it was refurbished equipment being shipped, there is no reason that I know of they should have been blocked, logo or not. News sources are saying they were refurbished batteries. Why should those be blocked?

”My rights should not be curtailed because the market needs of a single company”

That’s at the root of the problem. Many customers want to have access to spare parts, but is it their right? I think car manufacturers are required to provide spare parts for a reasonable time, but I’m not aware of laws or regulations requiring that for other products.

Even if they exist, I don’t know enough about the examples involving Apple to know whether they are in breach of any regulations.

>> My rights should not be curtailed because the market needs of a single company

> That’s at the root of the problem. Many customers want to have access to spare parts, but is it their right?

That's not what I was saying. If counterfeit items are blocked, I don't care. The law specifically makes an allowance for organizations to block copies of products at the border. But legitimate Apple products that are used (i.e. have been sold and refurbished by Apple) are blocked, as was clearly noted in the original comment, preventing those at the border if they are being sold by (and maybe bought by?) a U.S. citizen, that seems to clearly infringe on their rights.

> I think car manufacturers are required to provide spare parts for a reasonable time, but I’m not aware of laws or regulations requiring that for other products.

It's not about the right to get or buy something, it's about people's rights to resell things.

> Even if they exist, I don’t know enough about the examples involving Apple to know whether they are in breach of any regulations.

I don't know a huge amount either, but they are noted in the news as "refurbished".

That said, the agreement Apple has, if it functions as described in this thread, clearly seems to infringe on people's right to resell Apple products if they happen to pass through customs.

Solutions to this that don't require US customs to act as Apple's personal vetting service:

1. Manufacture, or at least assemble, in the US

2. Have better oversight over the factories in China

Well, #2 isn't really feasible because of the scale at which they now have to operate in order to meet customers' demand for products (IOW, you can't catch everyone).

As for #1, this gets thrown around a fair bit, especially with the current GOP Congress. However people constantly forget that regardless of where final assembly takes place, these jobs are the lowest of the low on the tech food chain. Ripe for automation, a human can easily be replaced by a machine that costs less and can work 24/7/365.

Unless people have no other alternatives, these jobs should be avoided at all costs.

Maybe I misunderstood, but didn’t Tesla just prove this level of automation is still too far out? Or am I comparing apples and oranges?

All they've proven is it's not here today, really.

" ... as it would be undercut by its own manufacturers."

Perhaps - but the whole reason these parts were getting imported from China in the first place is that Apple refuse to sell them anymore because the machines they fit in are "too old".

I'd kinda accept an argument that "you should buy it from Apple", but only with the necessary rider that says "Unless Apple refuse to sell it to you any more, in which case they've forfeit all import protection rights".

(Also, if Rossmann _did_ intentionally or unwittingly order known "non-Apple suppled parts with counterfeit Apple logos on them", then it's pretty dumb of him to complain and threaten to lawyer up. He shouldn't have ordered 3rd party batteries with Apple logos, and he should now just order another batch without the Apple brand/trademark on them and argue about the payment for the first batch with the supplier if he thinks it wasn't his fault...)

Only from China? If it were from any country for any kind of shipment, it would mean I wouldn't be able to sell my old Macbook Pro to an American and ship it to them. Nor would I be able to ship it to the US if I ever decide to move there. I hope I can still take it with me as carry-on, but at this point I wouldn't dare to rely on it.

I don’t think that’s so much a sweetheart deal going on but good old money + lawyers

Reply on news.ycombinator.com