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Made-in-Malaysia iPhone interface has Apple running scared

(58 votes)

by Vijandren Ramadass

Monday, 05 March 2007 11:59 AM

In a follow up to our story last week, Apple Inc, the manufacturer of the yet-to-be-released iPhone ( who themselves are in a tussle with Cisco over the use of the iPhone name) have claimed copyright to a video filmed by a Malaysian programmer which was uploaded to YouTube.com.

Now comes the question. How, or in what way does Apple claim copyright on a video which was 1. filmed at home, of an interface that was 2. programmed by the individual himself, 3. installed in a piece of hardware he owns, 4. somewhat closely resembles, but is not entirely the same of 5. a product that is yet to be released. Furthermore, the template was 6. not distributed publicly, and therefore 7. would not be even considered to be a breach of any patent owned, or not owned by Apple Inc. Are Apple running scared that there will be countless geeks trotting around with their much prized interface before they even launch their product?

Somewhere down at Redmond, i can see a glimmer of a smile.

Update: Tzy Wen has received a cease and desist letter (published interim below) from Apple's lawyers. You have got to wonder how long Apple plans to keep this up. Tzy Wen is a 20 year old who whipped this up in his free time. There are countless others out there who will be able to do the same, if not better. Are Apple planning on chasing and hunting down every maker of an iPhone interface till eternity? In this age of piracy and quick bucks, i would have half expected Apple Inc, with all its ipod-dollars to have given this kid some appreciation for NOT releasing his work to the public - free or otherwise. I don't think even Apple Inc with all their fancy copyright claims could keep up with the speed of distribution on the internet if he did release it.

Dear Sir:

We represent Apple Inc. (“Apple”) in intellectual property enforcement matters and are writing to you regarding the recent Internet articles and postings about what you claim is a clone of the interface of Apple's iPhone product.

In addition to seeking patent protection, Apple is also the owner of various U.S. and international intellectual property and other enforceable rights covering the iPhone, including its design, software, display, icons and interface.

Because we believe the software program that you say you authored and describe as an “iPhone interface clone” is an infringement of Apple's rights in violation of U.S. and international laws, and because you may make the software commercially or shareware available, it is in both of our interests that you clearly understand that Apple takes matters of this kind very seriously, and is prepared to takes steps that are necessary to protect its rights.

While we appreciate your attention to the iPhone, in consideration of Apple's rights, which you appear to anticipate exist in your Internet postings, we request that you promptly: (i) cease the development and distribution of this software, (ii) take steps to remove any postings of the software or videos featuring the software from any website or server under your control, and (iii) destroy any portion of the software that infringes Apple’s rights or otherwise violates applicable law.

We appreciate your prompt cooperation and compliance with this letter.

Sincerely,

David J. Miclean

DJM/dma

Comments

Name: soroosh	Comment: guys where can i find sealed iphone in malaysia not unlocked below RM2000?
Rated Article: Posted: 2008-01-04 18:55:49

Name: neemo_emo24

Comment:
to Tzy Wen ,

keep up man on do'in the iPod interface.... i say that was "quite impressive" in incooperating iPod interface in a PocketPC...i mean does anyone would like to change just the view of a normal, so lame and boring Windows Pocket PC?...that's a kind of Malaysian we want to show that were good at....but dude...stick to originality and anonymous...

to Apple

,

i'd rather sue you for making a complete BAD "quality" of iPhones and all of your iPod's product...i feel sorry for Malaysians who have to pay more to buy Apple's product, which is so-called "trendy, stylish and luxury" than any other country in the world.....not all Apple product's are come in originality, and the software used by Apple is sucks, hard to use and lot and lots of problems and bugs.....

Rated Article:

Posted: 2007-11-09 22:49:15
IP Logged as: 124.82.88.234

Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.9) Gecko/20071025 Firefox/2.0.0.9

Name: Child

Comment:
Hi guys, Am not A malaysian bt am inspired by this topic.look here, Apple gat rights to make a stand against tzy wen -reasons
1.tzy used wrong brand for his product which almost similar to apple.I child who is talking,I also made such kind of item sometimes back bt i didnt name it anything.
2.Most of YOU malaysian people your Obsessed to pirated software just ask yourself if Iphone was your wat would u do for that incident.
3.tzy wen is just seeking for cheap popularity i did that i thank earlier than him bt i didnt post anything.It's ok his capable bt he has to have a limit.
If not am 21yrs old, he wii never be nice as am or we.
So tzy wen stay low profile wiz your funny stuffs dats how u will survive the big Company bullyshit.
4.tzy wen keep your things 53cr371y.

by da way thanks for this topic

Rated Article:

Posted: 2007-11-02 20:25:07
IP Logged as: 202.133.102.242

Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.8.1.9) Gecko/20071025 Firefox/2.0.0.9

Name: v3n0m	Comment: http://rychlicki.net/en/2007/03/05/167/ Check this site out guys !! This lawyer eats apple lawyers at breakfast. And he's so damn right about Apple Tyranny
Rated Article: Posted: 2007-10-23 19:29:24

Name: v3n0m

Comment:
Apple bullying a 20 year old Malaysian kid? Thats sad, with all the bloody money made out of itunes and i-products i can't believe that Apple still goes to these extremes... Trust me Apple your definitely going to loose market share for your products in Malaysia dude, making a fuss out of a not yet acquired intellectual property name and interface yet to be released with the lame phone.

1)The kid was simply trying his "own" version of iphone as it has "not been released yet" here. Furthermore as noted above apple don't even have the ip over the name "iphone" yet so they CANNOT ask for their ip right to be enforced especially in those circumstances when the product has not been released yet.

2) Second point to be noted is that youtube same as p2p are not considered as public distribution domains on the web but as "shared" domains, which in layman terms means people are just sharing information among themselves in a "private" environment, thus apple has definitely no right to stomp on an individual's privacy about his own made product to reclaim any ip. The name "iphone interface clone" in itself can be the name of Tze product. Just as for example some1 create "Rolax" watch 2morrow which looks nearly same as a "Rolex" watch these are considered as different products as the label clearly stats "Rolax" and not "Rolex". SAme goes for Tzy name "iphone interface clone" which can be considered as name to be distinguished from "iphone". So dun come and try to bullshit ppl apple Malaysians are more smart than u think.

Cheers to Tzy Wen dun be intimidated its Apple who is clearly scared of you and not the inverse.

Rated Article:

Posted: 2007-10-23 19:16:35
IP Logged as: 203.188.235.3

Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.8) Gecko/20071008 Firefox/2.0.0.8

Name: someone	Comment: im 17, and i think apple has the right to do it. the malaysian should apologise. micrsoft and others don't mind yes, but apple does. u can't do shit to make them not to mind. it's not the matter of apple being a sore loser now. its about malaysians, and their integrity. grow up.
Rated Article: Posted: 2007-09-09 19:36:43

Name: morpheus3929	Comment: hey guys...i've check on the subject and found out lotsa interface for pocket pc's and such ...tag apple gonna be screwed big time!! tag=iphone skin
Rated Article: Posted: 2007-07-05 15:01:06

Name: MQ07

Comment:
u Know wat! there's a software called "windows Blind" it can makes ur win xp looks like vista/alienwaretheme/MAC os X/ ETC..
da thing is how come apple didnt sue this software developer.. but they sue a young KID from malaysia..

soo. rather than i phone, i'll choose my PDA phone and install this iphone interface, and bring my ipod!!!!

Beside iphone doesn't have 3rd party software or video call func.. just like many other PPC

Rated Article:

Posted: 2007-04-16 15:49:59
IP Logged as: 219.93.97.92

Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/419 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/419.3

Name: wasapplelover

Comment:
i dont understand -- whatsogreat with this iphone ?

coming from apple it will surely expensive like hell and you never know when it will suddenly disappoint you. hardware failure... like my ibook failed me bigtime just after the warranty period lapse.

you see all kind of petition over the internet of how apple screw up ppl money and refuse to acknowledge their defective product.

u people wanna be guinea pig for apple 1st handphone ? ha hahh haaa.. dont waste money man, buy established brands instead la... nokia, motorola...

Rated Article:

Posted: 2007-03-28 15:34:32
IP Logged as: 218.111.216.208

Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; en-US; rv:1.8.1.3) Gecko/20070309 Firefox/2.0.0.3

Name: Baldeed Singh

Comment:
The letter is real, since it is meant to be for individual, not a corporation, it is set to be a friendly reminder.

I'm a lawyer myself, specializing in IP Rights. In this case, Apple is just merely exercising their rights, this is not a bully in any sort. The lawyer is just doing his job by reminding Tzy Wen that the design, software, display, icons and interface are all protected under the their IP Rights.

What Tzy Wen's mistake was declaring his/her work as "iPhone Clone", that's a very big difference between a work that has close similarity and a clone, though it's debatable.

What you guys must understand is that design, software, display & user interface takes a good load of time to develop, all the hard work obviously is very expensive and valuable. For someone to take away and plan to distribute is certainly a heart breaking news.

Take an example of Malaysia's own design output, let's say Selangor Pewter for example, what if a cratfsman from India manage to get hold of Selangor Pewter's most precious yet to be launch product, and start duplicating the exact same thing and distribute worldwide, then claim it's a clone of selangor pewter's yet to be launch product. How would one feel about this?

The moral of the story is, we Malaysian tends to take things for granted, this is not about Apple anymore, it's about how do you want Malaysian to be perceived in the worldmap.Those that criticized Apple and Apple's lawyer, encourage Tzy Wen and the like, I suggest you better think properly before you post.

Rated Article:

Posted: 2007-03-26 14:58:15
IP Logged as: 219.95.216.2

Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.11) Gecko/20070312 Firefox/1.5.0.11

Name: remiglobal	Comment: to tzy. you have certainly make me proud of the local software talent. keep up the good work and hacking. my best wishes for you and may god keep away those nasty copyrights owner.
Rated Article: Posted: 2007-03-23 17:21:15

Name: JS-MdV	Comment: Why u guys so easily get fooled by this kind of letter and treat it like real? Abdullah teach you to be stupid? Don't simply trust what you see dude! It doesn't look real to me for a formal lawyer letter!
Rated Article: Posted: 2007-03-22 21:21:52

Name: Amandeep Singh

Comment:
This is crazy. Apple Inc. don't have much of a case, lah.

Let's look at the facts of the case-
1.IF (big if that) Apple has any patents, then those are applicable in US territories, and countries with "reciprocity" arrangements. Malaysia may or may not be one of those countries.

2. If they'll take "any steps" to protect their intellectual property, they;ll have to haul themselves over to Malaysia, and prove to a local court that a) they own the patent, b) the Malaysian citizen copied it (not easy in an unreleased product), and c) it caused them commercial harm

3. Even if they do all that, there is still a "fair use" defence. It's like I hear a nice song on the radio, then sing a karaoke version at a bar, and tape it, and send it to friends.

My advice to the young dude - distribute his skin widely. Request the Apple lawyers to enforce whatever rights they think they have; AND start a blog and mock the sh** out of Apple all over the world.
Sure enough, they'll get back to him with a great offer for an out of court settlement.

Ciao guys, keep the faith.

Rated Article:

Posted: 2007-03-21 22:08:22
IP Logged as: 202.179.97.177

Browser: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727)

Name: lipanz	Comment: haha.. apple already scared.. hahaha.. silly Apple.. ppl makes Vista look alike,but Microsoft dont have any worry about that.. Apple scared of one 20 years old kid that do that personally.hahaha.. LOL
Rated Article: Posted: 2007-03-14 01:53:10

Name: Tech2all.com

Comment:

shhhhh.. don't even spell microsofts name.. they wont kill you but they will modify your next and very next generations.. Whatever apple is doing is worthless infact they lose in front of this kid.. The e-mail is not from apple as i can assume.. so lets not get rusty and get wasted talked about it.. anyway the kid got some fame made with it.. good for him

i remembered i did modify the kernel of windows 3.0 back in 90'z and translated the whole interface language to my language.. lol .. yea those were the times.. hey cheers for the Skin kiddo

Rated Article:

Posted: 2007-03-12 15:43:58
IP Logged as: 219.94.42.130

Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.2) Gecko/20070219 Firefox/2.0.0.2

Name: Junster90	Comment: Apple's just being a screwy sore loser... This is so unfair... Malaysian Pocket PC users should all use his software and mock apple wid it... hahaha... Cheers to our man Tzy Wen!!!
Rated Article: Posted: 2007-03-10 17:53:11

Name: Sean	Comment: I wish I had a money to offer this kid a job and pay for his lawyer fees!
Rated Article: Posted: 2007-03-10 15:48:07

Name: nil

Comment:
what the hell with the letter? it does not look official at all..much more like someone not from apple but maybe apple fanboys wrote it..if it is official, everything should be stated such as the serial number of the pattern, what numbers from the US laws about that infringement and violation..

and to hell with apple! or their fanboys! for god sake it is just and skin, it's not the real product at all, why apple don't want to sue people that make apple interface to windows?? i forgot the software name but is free,plus make the windows look exactly like a MAC OS with the same the same icons!
but then threaten a person just making a theme for a pda phone?

lame apple!

Rated Article:

Posted: 2007-03-10 10:11:52
IP Logged as: 211.24.226.65

Name: SkunkNeT	Comment: apple just plain stoopid sueing our malaysian kiddo...!! wahlao... it's just a skin.. apple is to be eaten..not to be used... what a freak apple a sore loser
Rated Article: Posted: 2007-03-09 15:52:07

Name: FuST	Comment: LOLz..let's post this piece of news into the web , so that everyone in the world can see it. HAHAHAHAHA...Apple
Rated Article: Posted: 2007-03-07 14:05:42

Name: young	Comment: Apple vs Cisco iPhone issue is over since late Feb. Link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070222/ap_on_bi_ge/cisco_apple;_ylt=AnmyZbutEzhbtLZtHziJkLSs0NUE So the "who themselves are in a tussle with Cisco over the use of the iPhone name" is not a matter anymore.
Rated Article: Posted: 2007-03-07 03:07:27

Name: Asid	Comment: haha i got the so call apple iphone interface for symbian phone..too bad my sony erricson cant use it
Rated Article: Posted: 2007-03-06 22:04:58

Name: Dai Wong	Comment: IPONHE also copied it's name from Cisco, as a Cisco user here, sue them to hell!!!!
Rated Article: Posted: 2007-03-06 16:37:47

Name: Ivan	Comment: this is great shame for apple...picking on a 20-year old kid when the kid's got no harm..
Rated Article: Posted: 2007-03-06 10:55:26

Name: emotional teachnology	Comment: Well if a product looks and "feels" like Iphone, I guess Apple has the right to sue. I think the argument here is that Iphone has not been approved for the patent rights yet. Apple is assuming that they will get it eventually soon or later. So they are throwing in the big guns just to protect their "my preciousssssss" product.
Rated Article: Posted: 2007-03-06 10:55:15

Name: Ben	Comment: That's why I never buy Apple products, not even their popular Macbooks or Ipods. And I hate those Apple fans too for overly praising the Mac OSX, that's just plain foolish
Rated Article: Posted: 2007-03-06 10:46:16

Name: KLCC	Comment: Tzy Wen should take legal action against Apple for invading his "private property", 'cause as the article says, Apple took HIS WORK (which is only considered to be similar in design, with a newly self created function) inside HIS privately owned device!!! Sue the crap out of Apple!!!!!!!!!
Rated Article: Posted: 2007-03-06 10:11:04

Name: Mac vs PC	Comment: Apple did come up with the interface idea, kind of similar to Microsoft copying OS X with Vista, does it still make Vista as good as OS X? I think not, the iPhone runs OS X not Pocket PC, a skin is a skin. It's what's underneath that counts. PS I have a pocket PC and would love that skin but I would rather have an iPhone... http://www.switchingtomac.com
Rated Article: Posted: 2007-03-06 05:17:39

Name: Kagaya	Comment: Haha...great... I think Tzy Wen should sell the thing to Microsoft so that they can came up with something alike and goes head to head. You see, there's many HELL out there. If Malebogia hates you, there's Mephisto...haha
Rated Article: Posted: 2007-03-06 00:58:35

Name: pakkas	Comment: go! go! malaysia. Tzy Wen, improvize. Change it into "Zig zag to unlock". Then release it for the good of mankind.
Rated Article: Posted: 2007-03-06 00:53:48

Name: radioactive

Comment:
Apple Inc=Total Losers.

If they are so afraid of copyright violation. then dun even publicise the interface. Even after the after they launch the phone, imo things are gonna get worst. ppl will probably make an identical clone of the entire interface. and its gonna be reverse engineered. And Apple will go round sueing everybody.

We don't see microsoft or sony going like a mad dog after people who makes copies of their software and distribute it everywhere. Look what we did...the microsoft vista like interface in WinXp. Copied PS3 themes and icons.

In fact they shud be grateful of what has been done. It indirectly helps promote their product. Sooner or later ppl will get the "original" Or maybe Apple made their iPhone too cheap to compete with other phones.

Rated Article:

Posted: 2007-03-06 00:36:27
IP Logged as: 60.48.32.183

Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.10) Gecko/20070216 Firefox/1.5.0.10

Name: Boi	Comment: LOL..in ur face, Apple!
Rated Article: Posted: 2007-03-05 23:08:10

Name: Cybersmiley	Comment: Well...guys...lets make it worse!!! Distribute it for free & its methods so everybody or anybody can convert his or her pocket PC into iPhone look alike. Then..perhaps then...no one will buy the iPhone when it is released. Cheers.....!!!
Rated Article: Posted: 2007-03-05 20:47:17

Name: Invince_Z	Comment: LOLZ..
Rated Article: Posted: 2007-03-05 18:14:48

Name: Invince_Z	Comment: LOLZ..apple was freaking scared. WTH with removing videos? Huh...rich people. Pathetic Apple.
Rated Article: Posted: 2007-03-05 18:10:06

Name: Li Ba Te	Comment: Apple fanboys (and fangirls) are dim-witted hypocrites. They scream and holler whenever Microsoft is accused of bullying but are mute when Apple does it.
Rated Article: Posted: 2007-03-05 17:59:32

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