Chinese AI Firm Wants Apple to Stop iPhone Production Over Patent Infringement Claims

[cmaier]

$1.4 billion? That’s all they are suing for? That’s the modern equivalent of Dr. Evil seeing ONE MILLION DOLLARS.

There have been patent lawsuits where the awarded damages have been more than a billion dollars. I believe apple already lost a 1.2 billion lawsuit. The damages are based on royalties - a tiny percentage of a large amount of sales. If you are sued for patent infringement make sure you get very good lawyers.

 

[MrDerby01]

This is good!!! More and more we are finding that apple thought they would get away with so many patent infringements to make the iPhone. They knew of these infringements even when they copied "good software" ideas from devs.

Applaud the countries that are working to insure apple's monopoly paywall system comes down and they open up fair competition to consumers as well.

 

[alexandr]

China doesn't honor US patents, so why would any US based company honor theirs?

well, what chinese products are made in the u.s.?

 

[Amazing Iceman]

'Xiao-i-Robot'? Retaliatory strike from iRobot incoming...

Don't be surprise if they come out with the first talking I-Robot vacuum cleaner.

 

[Amazing Iceman]

They forgot to go after Amazon (Alexa) and Google.

 

[Duane Martin]

I find it interesting that most times when some western patent troll sues Apple there will be a chorus of “evil Apple stealing other people’s dreams”; where are those posters this time?

Don’t get me wrong, patent abuse is an international problem, I am not defending this specific case.

And to all of those Americans waving the flag saying Apple should bring all production “home”, well, as of Q2 67% of Apple’s revenues came from outside the US, somewhere around 20% from China. The rest of the world, or the source of the majority of Apple’s revenue, is unlikely to be as enthusiastic about dramatically increased costs for Apple products in order to support a protectionist and isolating policy in the US. If Apple were given an ultimatum that they had to bring all production ”home” simple economics show Apple would be better to move to another country. Except that Apple has a lot of talented employees in the US that would be difficult to replace, reasonably assuming they would be reluctant to relocate.

Wow, it is almost like international economies are an intricate and complex web that defy populist ideology. Go figure.

 

[bobtem]

Patent lawyer, job security.

 

[Denzo]

The first thing I thought of was that’s a bit rich coming from a company called iRobot

 

[mannyvel]

A Chinese company suing for patent infringement? What a brave new world we live in.

 

[H2SO4]

Time Apple pulls out of China completely. They shouldn’t put up with this extortion. We can / should replace FoxConn as a company in the US; significantly cheaper than replacing TSMC.

Oh please, and for anybody that thinks that and is planning on buying a single Apple product made, or with components that are made in China I have one word for you.

Hypocrite.

 

[visualseed]

It’s Chinese 🇨🇳

But my other point is we should not rely on Chinese manufacturing for our important products. We don’t want them shaking up our life style in the US.

You know what what really shake up our lifestyle in the US? Working for low wages in massive electronic assembly plants.

 

[cakeloverpro]

the government over there has issues, the amount of corruption and who you have to pay off to build products to sell. 4 major manufactor entities , after covid and the whole supply chain, decided to move back to US, southern states.

China government is causing self inflicted wounds. You are a billionaire or a inventor, you now want out. Huawei, though i love their products, stole CISCO's routers and claimed its own, EVEN copied its manual and all its bugs.. its something the 50 cent army hates to recognized that china is great at copying not inventing.

Before saying 'look at tic toc' , i respond, its youtube lite with limits.

 

[ericwn]

A Chinese company suing for patent infringement? What a brave new world we live in.

Yup even oppressive regimes have a patent system.

 

[NetMage]

Before saying 'look at tic toc' , i respond, its youtube lite with limits.

I thought it was youtube with a dance track, a bit more innovative then you give them credit for.

 

[CWallace]

China has even cloned major European cities.

To be fair, so has Las Vegas.

 

[ts1973]

Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd., trading asFoxconn Technology Group and better known as Foxconn, is a Taiwanese multinational electronicscontract manufacturer with its headquarters in Tucheng, New Taipei City, Taiwan. In 2010, it was the world's largest provider of electronics manufacturing services[3] and the third-largest technology companyby revenue.[4] While headquartered in Taiwan, the company is the largest private employer in Mainland China and one of the largest employers worldwide.[5][6] Terry Gou is the company founder and former chairman.

Maybe the person who wrote it's Chinese was speaking from the future 😇. Seriously, you guys know that this is exactly where the greatest threat to world safety lies for the next decade... China invading and incorporating Taiwan is not a far fetched thought for much longer I'm afraid, and might be the base of a next World War.

That said, on the ground of things right now, Chinese courts might very well side with these guys because of political reasons. The actual facts will be bent such that they serve the political background that China wants to exploit.

 

[CWallace]

While the idea of having all Apple production in the US is a nice dream, the practicality of implementation is a nightmare.

Building enough factories is not much of a problem, however those factories staff hundreds of thousands of assemblers each. And those staffers have years of experience in assembling Apple products and that workforce is very scaleable - adding hundreds of thousands more workers during the peak production periods (like late Summer) and then shedding them during slack production periods where they go to work on other technology products for other contracts.

So not only would you need to hire probably a million-plus people to staff those factories, you would need to train them on how to assemble those items and then accept the heavier QA reject level as they become more skilled at doing their job over years. And then you also need to convince the states that house those factories to understand that hundreds of thousands of those workers are going to be on unemployment for a portion of the year when they're not needed because you don't want them to find another job and not come back, forcing you to hire new people and skill them up (Republican states that are deeply anti-state employment aid are going to love that). And of course Apple is not going to eat those higher initial and ongoing production costs - those will all be passed on to us customers in the form of higher prices for everything.

And even when you have done all of that, you're still going to be importing a significant amount of your components from China because they are the only place on the planet that produces them. And because a number of those parts are literally produced in very small "family factories", you are not going to be able to replicate them in the US.

At least now, the Chinese government has a strong incentive to order courts to dismiss these kinds of cases because actually stopping iPhone / Apple production has a massive negative impact on their economy and citizen workforce. The less impact such a legal stoppage has, the less incentive the government has to "protect" Apple. And if China's influence on Apple production draws down to being a supplier of certain components - especially components Apple is totally reliant upon China to supply - that actually ends up giving the Chinese government even more influence and control over Apple instead of less.

All the above being said, I am not advocating that Apple just sleeps in the bed they made and make no efforts to diversify their production outside of China. A diversified production system is important for many reasons - economic, legal, environmental, moral, etc.

And that applies to building everything in the United States as much as it applies to building everything in China.

 

[jefhai]

Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd., trading asFoxconn Technology Group and better known as Foxconn, is a Taiwanese multinational electronicscontract manufacturer with its headquarters in Tucheng, New Taipei City, Taiwan. In 2010, it was the world's largest provider of electronics manufacturing services[3] and the third-largest technology companyby revenue.[4] While headquartered in Taiwan, the company is the largest private employer in Mainland China and one of the largest employers worldwide.[5][6] Terry Gou is the company founder and former chairman.

Interesting how the Wiki article goes on to say “Mainland China”… Taiwan is apart China… it’s been that way for centuries.

It’s Taiwanese. Obviously. 🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼

Taiwan is so far ahead of China it’s in a different league.

Nope Taiwan is tiny compared to China. China will eventually take Taiwan rebels down and the land back

 

[PC_tech]

Interesting how the Wiki article goes on to say “Mainland China”… Taiwan is apart China… it’s been that way for centuries.



Nope Taiwan is tiny compared to China. China will eventually take Taiwan rebels down and the land back

Interesting how it says it’s one of the biggest EMPLOYERS in main land China 🙄

 

[_Spinn_]

Why now? Its not like Siri is a new feature.

 

[CthuluLemon]

I highly doubt this will come to anything, but it does highlight why it is such a problem for Apple to have it’s manufacturing overwhelmingly in one country, especially one who’s government’s values are in stark contrast to most other nations they sell to.

Anybody that is saying Apple should just leave China seems to have little idea how crippling that would be for Apple. It would be a decade+ long endeavor to do so, and Apple would not be able to remain the most valued and profitable company in the world without manufacturing in China and selling to Chinese consumers. You can’t just up and leave a market with billions of potential customers and expect your revenue streams to not take an irreparable hit. Apple is China’s lap dog, and will be until they are able to diversify their supply chain. Right now, it’s not looking good. They can barely get things off the ground in India, for instance.

The downside of manufacturing everything in China, particularly the iPhone, is that Apple has not helped develop the manufacturing skill and capacity anywhere else. Apple and others have China a twenty year head start. There is no other nation that even comes close to the manufacturing capacity Apple needs. Tim Cook made all of these decisions, he was the man in Steve Jobs ear saying “Move everything to China, they’re giving us the world for free!”

It was arrogant for Apple or any company to think they could “liberalize” (small l) China. Now under Xi, the Chinese Communist Party is returning to more authoritarian, illiberal policies. The writing has been on the wall since Xi came to power, and yet Tim Cook has done next to nothing to take it seriously. Just one more instance of Apple not being proactive under his leadership.

Apple may have the cash to ride out a decades+ endeavor to move out of China, but they would lose relevance and skill in that time. What engineer would want to work for a company that can’t effectively manufacture anything they design for years? That’s the immediate future Apple would be looking at if they left China. It’s not going to happen, and heads would roll if any one in the c-suite even brought it up to the board.

You have to give credit to China, they must have seen Apple’s naïveté from miles away.

 

[Stunning_Sense4712]

Unless you want products to cost 6X what they cost currently, this will not happen. Americans are addicted to cheap labor, and consumer goods. The whole reason most companies moved production to China in the first place was their insane low labor costs. They had billions of people not working, and living in poverty. There is no way with our current labor shortage, that you would be able to produce any products in a cost effective manner, with our bureaucratic hurdles, regulation red tape, and benefits most US workers demand.

What happens if China invades Taiwan and the US Government is forced to take military action against China. I suspect China would retaliate by blocking US business from doing any business in their country. Something tells me the costs would be a lot higher and that does not even factor in the supply chain shortage/disruption from that kind of event. Apple does not have to bring manufacturing back to the US their are other countries in the world Apple could set up business.

 

[Murgatroyd]

PRC patent system is a joke. I knew that because in the past decade I’ve applied about 20+ invention patents in US and China, as part of my work. USPTO have rejected ~30% of my applications and the rests are accepts after overhaul, but China accepted them all without any objections.

At the beginning of the process, the CCP only wants a quick look_ee_see to realize if you have anything interesting for them. Behind closed doors, Nixon's people were suckers.

 

[CarlJ]

Time Apple pulls out of China completely. They shouldn’t put up with this extortion. We can / should replace FoxConn as a company in the US; significantly cheaper than replacing TSMC.

Where in the US are you going to find half a million workers in the US who have the necessary skills, are available, and all live in (or can relocate themselves to) the same county?

 

[Mousse]

Why now? Its not like Siri is a new feature.

Indeed. It's nearly 10 years now that Siri has been on the iPhone.

Unless it's some new feature of Siri, which was never mentioned in the article, then I don't see any infringement. If they didn't sue 10 years ago, they practically abandoned their patent. If it's some new feature of Siri, they need to state something specific.