Casetify busted stealing iPhone case designs from dbrand

AppleInsider

YouTuber JerryRigEverything and case manufacturer dbrand has called out Casetify for what appears to be a blatant iPhone cases design ripoff, and a multi-million dollar lawsuit has been filed.

Zack Nelson in a JerryRigEverything YouTube video

Allegations are just allegations until a court case has concluded, and especially when the accused has not yet had their chance to refute the accusation. But as well as filing a lawsuit, Zack Nelson -- aka JerryRigEverything -- has publicly called out Casetify and dbrand has presented evidence that it's hard to imagine can be denied by even the best lawyers.

"Back when Twitter was still called Twitter," says Nelson in a 14-minute YouTube video, "someone tagged dbrand in a post pointing out that Casetify was selling a Samsung Galaxy S23 phone case with the internals of an iPhone. And not only that, every single product they were selling was using the exact same iPhone image."

Nelson and dbrand sell cases for iPhones and Android models where the case has a photograph of what's actually inside those phones. Originally, Casetify allegedly sold such cases for such phones, but the photograph was always of the same iPhone.

On social media, "dbrand being dbrand took a little shot at Casetify, which is fine," says Nelson, "just a little Twitter banter between companies."

"[Then] dbrand and I continue along our merry way making accurate Teardown products while Casetify is dressing up Androids like iPhones," he continues. "No big deal."

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Nelson and dbrand call their cases Teardown and a few months later, Casetify launched a range called Inside Out. It also consisted of smartphone cases that had a photograph of the device's interiors, but this time correct ones.

"They did it," says Nelson. "A much more accurate look at the insides, and normally I'd be very proud of Casetify for actually taking the effort to actually portray the insides, because I'm not the only person on the planet who likes to take things apart."

"I don't own the idea of repairing things yourself, or am I the only person who appreciates the beauty of internal hardware?" he continues. "If Casetify went back to the drawing board, purchased a bunch of phones, took them apart, scanned the internals to properly make a Teardown skin competitor, bring on the competition."

But while Nelson's and dbrand's Teardown cases are accurate photographic representations of devices, they're not quite fully accurate -- as Nelson shows in his video and dbrand details in a Twitter/X thread.

Casetify stole our products. Now we're suing them.

Here's how we found out... (1/6)

-- dbrand (@dbrand)

November 23, 2023

"dbrand and I go to extreme lengths to ensure that every Teardown skin is an accurate representation of what's actually on the inside," says Nelson. "But that also doesn't stop us from sneaking in a few Easter eggs for people to find."

So some models of Samsung phones have a tiny extra on the motherboard, with a quote from Nelson. He reportedly says repeatedly, "glass is glass, and glass breaks," and that is written inside both dbrand's and now Casetify's cases.

"Definitely not something Samsung would ever put inside their device," says Nelson.

Then there is also a component that has been labelled "R0807." It's in both dbrand's and Casetify's case, but it's an easter egg because it is actually just a reference to dbrand's robots.

Easter eggs like this were done for the fun of it, but they're now going to effectively be like the trap streets atlas makers famously use. That's where something intentionally wrong, such as a fictitious road, are included in one map and can be used to prove that another copied it.

Nelson and dbrand's fun easter eggs have become practically a whole trap town, though, because the list goes on.

For instance, dbrand also has a logo saying "Subscrbe" in the same place that there's a Casetify one in its cases. But the the two different marks are surrounded by the number 11 in a couple of places, identically positioned.

Nelson points out that the dbrand 11s are a reference to how that firm started on 11/11/2011. "Now why would Casetify include the day that dbrand was founded on their products?" asked Nelson.

Expect this to be an exhibit in court: dbrand highlights the alleged copying of the number 11

Just to nail turning it up to 11 a little further, dbrand also altered a specification that is usually shown visibly on the Pixel 7 Pro. "The Pixel 7 Pro actually has 19.25 watt hours of battery capacity [and we changed it to 11.11]," said Nelson, "but Casetify wouldn't know that since they probably didn't even take apart a phone to get this image."

Reportedly, across a wide range of Casetify Inside Out products, Nelson and dbrand have consistently found at least one easter egg of their making.

"I'm not normally a legal action kind of guy, but I also don't get ripped off by billion dollar corporations every day," continues Nelson. "I could call them out on social media of course, or dbrand could tweet some witty tweets, but at the end of the day in this David and Goliath situation, Goliath doesn't have the obligation to remove my products from their website just because I made a video calling them out on it."

"So instead we're giving them something they can't ignore...," he explains, "a lawsuit."

The suit has been filed by dbrand against Casetify. Nelson cautions that he does not expect a speedy result, but also insists that "this isn't about the money."

"Theft is just not cool, and I think the biggest way we can teach Casetify a lesson is with a multi-million dollar lawsuit," he says. "Getting hit in the wallet is what hurts these giant corporations the most."

"There is a real possibility that no one wins here," he warns. "I think they stole something, and I think they know they stole something, but the wheels of justice turn extremely slowly."

The wheels of justice can also be very expensive and Nelson suggests that supporters buy his and dbrand's new range to raise money. The new range of cases also have the insides of devices on them, but rather than a photograph, they are X-ray images.

Casetify has now sent a statement to AppleInsider, and released the same text on Twitter/X.

pic.twitter.com/dNW4zuOvMT

— CASETiFY (@Casetify)

November 24, 2023

As well as working with JerryRigEverything's Nelson, dbrand has been making cases or what it calls skins for years.

Update: 12:00 ET with a statement from Casetify.

Read on AppleInsider

13485

Of course Casetify will say that they had seen those images, but that it was a simple mistake by their graphics or engineering department...or something like that. The cheapest way out for them is going to be to deny that they copied for as long as they can, then claim that they didn't make any money from the alleged stolen goods, then settle out of court and buy the dbrand company.

wonkothesane

The way Zack makes his case is just Gold.

hmlongco

wonkothesane said:

The way Zack makes his case [sic] is just Gold.

I saw what you did there.

dr. x

They also copied iFixit's designs.

FileMakerFeller

So are we going to see all the trolls who complained about Apple's iPhone patents now step up to defend Casetify?

"You can't legally protect a black rectangle the number 11" ?

godofbiscuitssf

FileMakerFeller said:

So are we going to see all the trolls who complained about Apple's iPhone patents now step up to defend Casetify?

"You can't legally protect a black rectangle the number 11" ?

That's not what they're trying to protect.

danox

So this is the D Bag who destroy's iPhones/iPads/Mac Laptops for views on YouTube when they come out?  I hope he has a long money draining relationship with the court system. 

Honkers

danox said:

So this is the D Bag who destroy's iPhones/iPads/Mac Laptops for views on YouTube when they come out?  I hope he has a long money draining relationship with the court system. 

Huh?

https://www.youtube.com/@dbrand/videos

avon b7

danox said:

So this is the D Bag who destroy's iPhones/iPads/Mac Laptops for views on YouTube when they come out?  I hope he has a long money draining relationship with the court system. 

Well, when he buys a device, it's his to do with as he pleases and the videos are interesting to a point. 

He also stated that anything won in court would be used to buy machinery for his wheelchair factory and he'd be giving away as many as possible of the wheelchairs made with the tools for free. 

citpeks

Cartographers put "trap" elements (fake streets, towns, features) in their maps to help identify and catch plagiarists.

Looks like dbrand borrowed that trick and caught Casetify red-handed.  Hard to weasel out of this one.

tht

Seems to me Apple, Samsung and other OEMs can come down on both these case companies like a ton of bricks. They are making money off of these companies' IP. There are changes, like the heat pipes are removed, but these "photographs" are the value of the cases, and these case companies didn't really produce the "art". At best highly derivative works, but there is definitely a line there that they have crosses, imo.

Too much of a small fry for Apple and Samsung to bother, but glass houses.

netrox

It is so obvious that Casetify's case is of poor quality. Dithered prints. blurry fonts. It gives an imitation feel, not a geniune feel. 

neoncat

tht said:

Seems to me Apple, Samsung and other OEMs can come down on both these case companies like a ton of bricks. They are making money off of these companies' IP. There are changes, like the heat pipes are removed, but these "photographs" are the value of the cases, and these case companies didn't really produce the "art". At best highly derivative works, but there is definitely a line there that they have crosses, imo.

Too much of a small fry for Apple and Samsung to bother, but glass houses.

The design of the motherboard can be copyrighted, or perhaps even trademarked. But the later, in particular, would apply narrowly to use in creating another motherboard. A photograph of a motherboard is not a derivative work, it is an original work that it, itself, can be copyrighted. They would have to take care to remove Apple's branding—for example, I assume that somewhere on the motherboard are Apple logos and the like. 10 seconds in Photoshop to remove those. 

The analogy would be that a recipe cannot be copyrighted. A specific presentation of that recipe can be, however. I cannot just copy wholesale your presentation of a recipe for delicious chocolate chip cookies, text and all. I can, however, take the list of ingredients and all the steps and re-present them with my own text and in my own medium without owing you credit.

baconstang

citpeks said:

Cartographers put "trap" elements (fake streets, towns, features) in their maps to help identify and catch plagiarists.

Looks like dbrand borrowed that trick and caught Casetify red-handed.  Hard to weasel out of this one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_settlement

tht

neoncat said:

tht said:

Seems to me Apple, Samsung and other OEMs can come down on both these case companies like a ton of bricks. They are making money off of these companies' IP. There are changes, like the heat pipes are removed, but these "photographs" are the value of the cases, and these case companies didn't really produce the "art". At best highly derivative works, but there is definitely a line there that they have crosses, imo.

Too much of a small fry for Apple and Samsung to bother, but glass houses.

The design of the motherboard can be copyrighted, or perhaps even trademarked. But the later, in particular, would apply narrowly to use in creating another motherboard. A photograph of a motherboard is not a derivative work, it is an original work that it, itself, can be copyrighted. They would have to take care to remove Apple's branding—for example, I assume that somewhere on the motherboard are Apple logos and the like. 10 seconds in Photoshop to remove those. 

The analogy would be that a recipe cannot be copyrighted. A specific presentation of that recipe can be, however. I cannot just copy wholesale your presentation of a recipe for delicious chocolate chip cookies, text and all. I can, however, take the list of ingredients and all the steps and re-present them with my own text and in my own medium without owing you credit.

I hear what you are saying, but these renderings as photographs are clearly derivative works of Apple’s industrial design style and are designed to evoke the ID of Apple’s hardware. 

They have to toe the line of having the renderings appear as close to Apple’s internal layout as possible, but not copy too much. Otherwise, the cases wouldn’t offer the same value. Therein lies the problem, the value doesn’t belong to them, but Apple, or Samsung. Seems to me, both these companies can make that case in court. 

Both companies did the effort of not mimicking Apple’s internal layouts exactly, as if it were a photograph. Casetify turned the fan direction 180° but those fans are quite similar to Apple’s fan design. The LPDRR “rectangles” on the SoC clearly evoke Apple’s SoC design. Placement of the significant internal elements are all on the same locations as Apple’s. 

I’ve seen hundreds of internal layouts of laptops. You would not mistake an Apple internal layout from any other laptop maker. If you do, your immediate reaction is that laptop maker is copying Apple’s ID. There is maybe one, maybe two, out of hundreds that I’ve seen that even come close.

Glass houses. 

mikethemartian

tht said:

Seems to me Apple, Samsung and other OEMs can come down on both these case companies like a ton of bricks. They are making money off of these companies' IP. There are changes, like the heat pipes are removed, but these "photographs" are the value of the cases, and these case companies didn't really produce the "art". At best highly derivative works, but there is definitely a line there that they have crosses, imo.

Too much of a small fry for Apple and Samsung to bother, but glass houses.

By that logic automobile manufacturers could sue movie studios any time their vehicles are used in a film without consent.