Elite Chinese university allegedly ripped off Apple's Touch ID logo for anniversary celebration
A logo created for the 110th anniversary of China's Fudan University --?one of the country's most prestigious institutions --?bears a striking resemblance to Apple's Touch ID emblem, spurring accusations of copyright infringement against the Shanghai-based school.
The Fudan University logo appears to be a reflected version of the stylized Touch ID fingerprint, rotated onto its side. As first noted by Kotaku, Chinese netizens have compared the two, finding a nearly identical overlap.
This is actually the second such scandal in a week for Fudan University, which was forced to take down a promotional video that was nearly identical to an earlier one made for the University of Tokyo. The school apologized for the video mishap, but has not commented on the anniversary logo.
Chinese enterprise has a long history of blatantly violating and ignoring intellectual property law, especially when the IP in question is held by foreign companies or institutions. A 2013 study of intellectual property theft, headed by former Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair and former U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, found the theft of American intellectual property by Chinese companies caused economic losses of as much as $300 billion each year.
Gen. Keith Alexander, the former National Security Agency director, called such thefts "the greatest transfer of wealth in history."
Apple itself is often a victim of these practices, with dozens of fake Apple stores around the country and knockoff iPhones and iPads available on many street corners. The release of the Apple Watch brought a fresh wave of fakes, as manufacturers flooded the market with copycats that retail for as little as $40.
The Fudan University logo appears to be a reflected version of the stylized Touch ID fingerprint, rotated onto its side. As first noted by Kotaku, Chinese netizens have compared the two, finding a nearly identical overlap.
This is actually the second such scandal in a week for Fudan University, which was forced to take down a promotional video that was nearly identical to an earlier one made for the University of Tokyo. The school apologized for the video mishap, but has not commented on the anniversary logo.
Chinese enterprise has a long history of blatantly violating and ignoring intellectual property law, especially when the IP in question is held by foreign companies or institutions. A 2013 study of intellectual property theft, headed by former Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair and former U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, found the theft of American intellectual property by Chinese companies caused economic losses of as much as $300 billion each year.
Gen. Keith Alexander, the former National Security Agency director, called such thefts "the greatest transfer of wealth in history."
Apple itself is often a victim of these practices, with dozens of fake Apple stores around the country and knockoff iPhones and iPads available on many street corners. The release of the Apple Watch brought a fresh wave of fakes, as manufacturers flooded the market with copycats that retail for as little as $40.
Comments
Anyone with eyeballs can clearly see they are near identical designs.
(aka: "slavish imitation")
Anyone with eyeballs can clearly see they are near identical designs.
Yes, but it is not a direct copy. The curves are different. Apple does not own the concept of a stylized fingerprint, it has been around for quite some time.
Are you insane?
You serious? The curves, gaps, spacing are the same if the flip the copy. If this was text, it'll be plagiarism.
Yes, but it is not a direct copy. The curves are different. Apple does not own the concept of a stylized fingerprint, it has been around for quite some time.
From TFA...
Hooray for fake drama news. Apple apparently invented the fingerprint now.
Ha! You think a graphic logo is an actual fingerprint?
It seems Apple consistently innovates, while the rest of the world copies.
It's not the same image. Aside from being reversed, it's not the same width strokes, different break locations, different curves, etc.
This is just a natural evolution of the (stylized) fingerprint, nothing to see here.
/s
Ha!
So even though it's not exactly the same image, it can be construed that it's in the same vain. I think the issue is can every single icon by copyrighted and how far does that copyright extend (in other words, how much can it be different and still be considered the same). For instance, it's reversed, different color, not an icon, and the lines are different. So while some may feel it's the "same", it's really not. In the same way there are a lot of font typefaces that are close to the originals but are not the original, and still can be used.
I think it also comes down to the intent of the designer. Did the designer intentionally copy Apple's work or not. It could be that they designed in isolation from Apple and scanned a finger print and drew lines in Illustrator, etc. I think in this case it comes down to intent and perception.
Quite a lot of assumptions about design there.
This is an obvious, student-level hack job.
Much ado about something silly and low-level. Falls into the "they shouldn't have done it," rather than "OMG! Unforgivable!!!!!!" category.