Feds seize ‘counterfeit Apple AirPods’ that are actually OnePlus Buds • Hacker News Board

Re: Feds seize ‘counterfeit Apple AirPods’ that are actually OnePlus Buds

#221

Post by ardy42 » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 4:21 PM UTC

unixhero wrote: post #94

nightcracker wrote: post #92

So this is just theft by the government in open daylight, right?

I for one, cannot get over this: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=tsa+lot+of&_trksid=p233... Pretty much theft and resale.

> I for one, cannot get over this: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=tsa+lot+of&_trksid=p233...

> Pretty much theft and resale.

Why? It's common knowledge and well signed [1] that knives aren't allowed on planes. IIRC, the TSA does people with knives the option of getting out of line to take their knife home, but most people don't bother because it's more important to them to catch their flight.

[1] https://www.agefotostock.com/age/en/Stock-Images/Rights-Mana...

Re: Feds seize ‘counterfeit Apple AirPods’ that are actually OnePlus Buds

#222

Post by ardy42 » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 4:27 PM UTC

mindslight wrote: post #219

kop316 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who (used to) travel a lot, the TSA have signs plastered throughout the entire security line to remind you to look through your belongings and make sure you don't have any banned items (they included what they were and had pictures of them too). If you went through airport security with a banned item (such as a knife), what they did was offer you three choices: - They let you go back outside of security an…

The TSA is responsible for creating the roadblock, and therefore should be responsible for keeping travelers whole. "read the rules" is not a justification for their policies, as it's common to have an arbitrarily-prohibited item hide in your bag. Especially the types of items that you want to live in your backpack (eg pocket knives) that you have to make sure to unpack before the airport. For anything that can be ch…

> The TSA is responsible for creating the roadblock, and therefore should be responsible for keeping travelers whole. "read the rules" is not a justification for their policies, as it's common to have an arbitrarily-prohibited item hide in your bag. Especially the types of items that you want to live in your backpack (eg pocket knives) that you have to make sure to unpack before the airport.

Knives aren't "arbitrarily-prohibited item[s]". There's a quite famous case of a series of hijackings that were done with box-cutters (e.g. utility knives), that resulted in 3,000 dead.

Re: Feds seize ‘counterfeit Apple AirPods’ that are actually OnePlus Buds

#223

Post by ponker » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 4:30 PM UTC

tyingq wrote: post #130

The CBP is very hard to deal with. I once bought about 100 electronic items that come with AC adapters to power them. Unknown to me, the AC adapters had fake UL marks on them. So, the CBP seized the shipment. I asked if they could just seize the adapters, and explained that I hadn't even asked for UL listed adapters. No dice. The adapters represented less than 10% of the value of the shipment. Argh. And, of course, t…

CBP isn’t there to work through your issues, they’re there to seize contraband crossing the border. Tough shit, be more careful with suppliers next time. Many fires are caused by garbage and fraudulent electronics like your adapters.

Re: Feds seize ‘counterfeit Apple AirPods’ that are actually OnePlus Buds

#224

Post by np- » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 4:41 PM UTC

scott_s wrote: post #151

np- wrote: post #140

I am no CBP fan either, but has anyone considered the case that these are counterfeit AirPods in counterfeit OnePlus earbud boxes? If you look at the opened box picture in the CBP memo, you will notice the earbuds do NOT match the picture on the OnePlus box and look much much more similar to actual AirPods.

I did a double-take based on your comment, but after looking closely at the CBP pictures, and the pictures in this review [1], I think they are likely to be OnePlus pods. The thing that caught me (and maybe you) is that the OnePlus pods have a flat part, and the CBP pictures have no flat part. But looking at the pictures from the review, the flat part is the end of the stem, and then the bulbous round part that goes…

Good call. You’re totally correct, I was thinking about it from the wrong angle.

Re: Feds seize ‘counterfeit Apple AirPods’ that are actually OnePlus Buds

#225

Post by michaelt » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 4:43 PM UTC

elmo2you wrote: post #181

jsjohnst wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m fairly certain they are the exact same ones confiscated. It’s a near blatant knockoff of Apple’s patented designs. Now should Apple be able to get said all encompassing design patents? That’s a different debate.

Looks like rather generic design to me, especially since a substantial parts of are basically dictated by the human anatomy. So regardless the questionable nature of design patents in the first place, this design certainly does not warrant such patents. But in any case, that's for a court to decide. Does the USA actively seize other products that violate patents without a court case? How would they even determine inf…

> Looks like rather generic design to me

Just make a 3-way comparison between apple airpods [1], oneplus buds [2] and the previous oneplus bullets [3]. Ignore the cable.

OnePlus change their design to be shaped like a quarter note, remove the controls, change to white shiny plastic, add a downward pointing cylinder with a silver ring at the end, change to hard plastic instead of a soft rubber earpiece, change to a 0 shaped sound outlet, add a charging case, and make the charging case white and unbranded with rounded corners a flip top and a single green LED at the centre?

This is fairly blatantly an off-brand clone. However, I don't think off-brand clones are illegal if sold as such, so I'm not sure this shipment should have been seized - but I can understand the custom agents' confusion.

[1] https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/audio-and-headphones/headphone... [2] https://www.johnlewis.com/oneplus-buds-true-wireless-bluetoo... [3] https://www.oneplus.com/uk/bullets-wireless-2

Re: Feds seize ‘counterfeit Apple AirPods’ that are actually OnePlus Buds

#226

Post by Navarr » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 4:49 PM UTC

kop316 wrote: post #168

tyingq wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"what should they have done?" Seized the adapters. That would have been enough for me to be more careful about adapters in the future. Seizing the whole shipment hurts me, but not the supplier. See my other example here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24469959 There's any number of things you might not expect, and the receiver is the only one hurt when they are a smaller player.

Respectfully, how would they be able to verify that a) you are being truthful, and b) that only part of the shipment is real, when once part has been shown not to be?

It doesn't matter.

The burden of truth is supposed to be on the accuser.

Consider if you will - a robber is caught by police in his own house. In this house, they found the items the robber stole. Should they:

a) take the items the robber stole b) take everything

Re: Feds seize ‘counterfeit Apple AirPods’ that are actually OnePlus Buds

#227

Post by tyingq » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 4:55 PM UTC

ponker wrote: post #223

tyingq wrote: post #130

The CBP is very hard to deal with. I once bought about 100 electronic items that come with AC adapters to power them. Unknown to me, the AC adapters had fake UL marks on them. So, the CBP seized the shipment. I asked if they could just seize the adapters, and explained that I hadn't even asked for UL listed adapters. No dice. The adapters represented less than 10% of the value of the shipment. Argh. And, of course, t…

CBP isn’t there to work through your issues, they’re there to seize contraband crossing the border. Tough shit, be more careful with suppliers next time. Many fires are caused by garbage and fraudulent electronics like your adapters.

Fwiw, CBP doesn't give a rat about safety. It's solely a trademark thing for them.

Edit: Regarding below. That never came up. It was all cited as a trademark issue.

Re: Feds seize ‘counterfeit Apple AirPods’ that are actually OnePlus Buds

#228

Post by Nasrudith » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 5:01 PM UTC

microcolonel wrote: post #15

MrStonedOne wrote: post #7

The legal definition of counterfeit product (as realized by CBP's jurisdiction) boils down to: Bares a Registered Trademark and does not have a signed letter of authenticity by the trademark holder authorizing its import. That is super broad and covers a lot of things most people would think to be false positives like legit items sold second hand. But even that doesn't cover thinking OnePlus Buds are AirPods.

Isn't the fact that nobody involved in this seizure could tell that they weren't AirPods counterfeits a form of evidence that OnePlus Buds may in some circumstance be AirPods counterfeits?

Despite the resemblance to the "idiot in a hurry test" not really any more than the police mistaking flour for cocaine means that grain mills are massive criminal enterprises that through some sinister alchemy have managed to transmute wheat to cocaine.

Re: Feds seize ‘counterfeit Apple AirPods’ that are actually OnePlus Buds

#229

Post by mikl » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 5:04 PM UTC

Aperocky wrote: post #201

mikl wrote: post #62

To be fair, OnePlus Buds appear to be counterfeit AirPods in everything but the name. Same shape, same white plastic, same metal endcaps, same black dots, even the same case design. In other words, a straight-up rip-off of Apple’s design with a few minor changes.

The phone your holding has the same screen in the front, camera on the back, a home button, and the keyboard shows up on the bottom when you're typing. Maybe even the same front camera design. All of that is just straight-up rip-off of.. everyone's phone?

The smart-phone form factor is largely determined by the rectangular screen, and for the cameras to be useful, they have to be on the back and/or front.

The keyboards are very different in design between Google and Apple, and many phones don’t have home buttons. Some even have more buttons.

Conversely, there’s nothing about ear-buds that force you to use white plastic with black grills for the holes, EarPod-style stems, or metal tips on said stems, nor a white round-rect pill box to store the things in.

The lazy OnePlus people chose to copy those features, making their product look like Apple’s.

Re: Feds seize ‘counterfeit Apple AirPods’ that are actually OnePlus Buds

#230

Post by mikl » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 5:08 PM UTC

altacc wrote: post #72

mikl wrote: post #62

To be fair, OnePlus Buds appear to be counterfeit AirPods in everything but the name. Same shape, same white plastic, same metal endcaps, same black dots, even the same case design. In other words, a straight-up rip-off of Apple’s design with a few minor changes.

This is how a lot of "design" works, be it product design, fashion or software. A standard is set by a market leader and consumers want as close to that as they can get. So other companies offer similar versions, often sharing some of the same supply chain. It has happened throughout history and will continue as long as consumers have choice.

Sure, but there’s different degrees, from a little inspiration to an outright copy.

In this case, I think it’s far towards the copy-end. If you presented a case of OnePlus Buds to the average consumer as Apple AirPods, would they know the difference? I doubt it.