Have you ever purchased a charger, a cable or a spare battery for your phone or laptop? Are you a seller of accessories for consumer electronics? If so do you sell genuine manufacture accessories or would you be happy to buy third party compatible products?
I know in the past I’ve bought loads of accessories from car chargers to cradles to headsets for my mobile phone, but Apple is taking a stand against unauthorised accessories manufactured by third parties.
Apple are suing the biggest eBay seller in the world – eForCity, the only seller with , for selling unauthorised iPod, iPhone and iPad accessories. Six other companies are also named in the suit filed in July.
Apple have an MFi Program (Made for iPod, Made for iPhone, Made for iPad) to allow third parties to manufacture products certified to meet Apple performance standards. This enables manufacturers to legally produce Apple compatible accessories, but Apple also make a royalty for every item sold under the MFi Program.
If you’re a seller or manufacturer of third party products the outcome of this case could have implications for you, regardless of the manufacturers your accessories are suitable for. If you’re a buyer it will almost certainly mean that you’ll be paying a higher price for branded or accredited accessories in the future.
Via Auctionbytes
3 Responses
I hear Volkswagen are suing Shell for “non approved petrol”.
I can’t sympathise with Apple on this one. Whether it’s right or wrong it’s still going to happen. Do you all buy “genuine” parts for your car ?
I faintly remember when Apple started MFi. What exactly are they suing over? Is it Trademark infringement for mentioning iPod? Or is it about circumventing their patented technology that is supposed to block the use of these accessories? I tried to investigate via your link but I was threatened with prosecution under Title 18.
There is another problem that is going to arise with such situations in the future and for me is happening now. I use a Sharp Fontwriter Word Processor. Sharp decided to stop production of ribbons for this series. There does not seem to be a supplier for compatible ribbons so I like all other users of Fontwriters are desperate for ribbons. If Manufacturers can control completely the production of all accessories and indeed spares for their products what is to stop them arbitarily stopping production rendering all of the equipment useless as Sharp have done. In my case I will take a lot of convincing ever to buy another Sharp produced item.