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Media (Apple) Media Businesses Apple

iPod Shuffle Lookalike Hits CeBIT 554

An anonymous reader writes "It shouldn't be long before Apple's legal team goes after this one. LuxPro out of Taiwan introduced the Super Shuffle at CeBit, a look-a-like portable that is identical to the iPod Shuffle right down to the sihouette ads, but with the addition of an FM tuner and voice recording."
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iPod Shuffle Lookalike Hits CeBIT

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  • by LiquidCoooled ( 634315 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @08:45AM (#11925360) Homepage Journal
    If we discuss Luxpro's trade secrets, will they sue us just like Apple does?
  • I don't think there are any trademarks that have been hit and other than that they just kind of look the same and have similar functionality.

    As far as I can see this really isn't all that different from walking into the grocery store and finding the generic products that do about the same thing next to the name brand ones.
    • by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Sunday March 13, 2005 @08:53AM (#11925392) Homepage Journal
      Using a "similar" name is still trademark infringement. They're using Apple's brand to sell their product.
      • how do you know that this isn't the original product that Apple just rebadged???
      • Only in the case that it is in fact a trademark. As Apple does not display a (R) logo for a registered mark or even a (T) logo for a trademark then I assumed that they did not assert one.

        It appears [uspto.gov] that they've applied for a registered mark on their logo (but not the word itself, from what I grok), but haven't yet been granted a registered trademark on the SHUFFLE logo as of now.
        • by Leo McGarry ( 843676 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @12:51PM (#11926395)
          The use of symbols is not required by law. If you register your trademark, you get to skip over the part of the lawsuit where you demonstrate that it's a trademark.

          In this case, demonstrating that "shuffle" is an integral part of the "iPod shuffle" mark would take about two paragraphs and ten minutes of a legal assistant's time to type up.
    • Exactly what I think, when cd players first arrived, they all looked the same, round shape, same controls, etc... but it didn't matter, since it was serving a purpose.

      If you think you need to worry because someone else's product looks like yours, you have a problem. This means your whole sales concept is based on a look. I would be far more worried about a product that has more functionnalities, or cheaper.

      I don't know about you, but my mp3 player is always in my pocket, so how it looks doesn't really mat
      • If you think you need to worry because someone else's product looks like yours, you have a problem. This means your whole sales concept is based on a look. I would be far more worried about a product that has more functionnalities, or cheaper.

        It's called trade dressage, as I recall. Companies own the design, and can stop others from producing exact copies. IANAL, so there's no doubt a lot of factors that determine infringement (or what ever it's called).
      • by Have Blue ( 616 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @12:10PM (#11926215) Homepage
        No, it means that someone has taken the design that Apple put effort into developing and duplicated it at no cost to them. This is how they were able to shove in an FM radio and record feature without increasing the price. And this is why Apple's design is protected by law, because that's not a fair business practice and it should not be done.

        Just think of it as a GPL violation. We all get up in arms about that, right?
        • Just think of it as a GPL violation. We all get up in arms about that, right?

          No, no, no. I'm doing terrible things to my karma here, but people just don't seem to get this.

          This is much more like software patents, where we get frustrated with the fact that we're not allowed to copy what somebody already invented. Generally speaking copying is allowed.

          Have you ever been to the grocery store? Or maybe the electronics store? Or heck, Radio Shack. Basically every product at Radio Shack ("Realistic" was

          • by mabinogi ( 74033 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @05:37PM (#11928046) Homepage
            > This is much more like software patents, where we get frustrated with the fact that we're not allowed to copy what somebody already invented. Generally speaking copying is allowed.

            No, the issue with software patents is that most of the patents are for things so trivial that anyone could (and probably has) independantly develop them.

            A software patent on an application that is suffiently innovative, non trivial and non obvious is no better or worse than a patent on a physical invention, it's just that in the world of software patents, the patent examiners seem to have no clue and assume that anything someone has done with a computer must be worthy of patenting.

            If you have any other problem with software patents then it's not software patents you have a problem with, it's patents in general.

            But back to the Super Suffle.
            It looks almost identical to the iPod Shuffle, and it has an extremely similar name - "xxx Shuffle"
            I've never heard of another MP3 player called "Shuffle" so it's certainly not a generic term.

            I think it well and truly satisfies the "Confusingly similar" requirement.
            Similar to copyright, trademarks don't _need_ to be registered to be protected under trademark law.
            I guess the real issue here is whether or not they will try to sell it in a market that has trademark laws that will allow Apple to sue them.
      • by v1 ( 525388 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @01:25PM (#11926552) Homepage Journal
        The basic purpose of trademark is preventing consumer confusion. When one company markets a product, they advertise unique features of their product that allows the consumer to choose their widge machine over the next guy's. They attach claims to their advertisements too, describing things like guarantees and warranty, plus associating the company's good name (reputation) with the product.

        Another company selling widget machines might decide that instead of spending money on marketing, they can just make their widget machine look identical to (or very close to) the well-known widget machine. This creates "brand confusion", and pisses off customers when they buy what they thought was brand X but in fact was a visual knock-off of brand X by brand Y. They thought they were getting the promises from brand X, but brand Y is usually a lower quality unit with none of the promises, and the customer also finds they were not in fact buying from the well known and trusted brand, but rather some unheard of company. This is a case of fraud, where you are trying to trick the consumer into buying your product under the pretense that it's a different product.

        To illustrate... If you went to the grocery store and bought a bag of Cheetos and got home and started munching on them and they tasted like crap, (or, really, tasted like anything besides Cheetos) then you look closely at the bag (which at a glance looks IDENTICAL to a bag of Cheetos) and see the name is "Cheatos", you too would be pissed. Trademark laws are not only to help companies - they also protect the consumer against fraud.
    • by Patik ( 584959 ) <.cpatik. .at. .gmail.com.> on Sunday March 13, 2005 @09:01AM (#11925412) Homepage Journal
      other than that they just kind of look the same
      Kind of ?? There are more similarities between these two players than between successive generations of non-mini iPods. If they put it in a similar box a lot of people won't notice the difference. It's practically a twin.
      walking into the grocery store and finding the generic products that do about the same thing next to the name brand ones.
      For many of those products, namely medicines, the original creator has a patent that lasts many years before generics can be produced by other companies.
    • I believe it's the "You can't just copy someone elses work and sell it as your own" law - also known as copyright. I bet you were one of the first to complain at CherryOS ripping off PearPC.
      • And you sir do not understand copyright law at all.

        This is nothing like the Pear PC.

        If the CherryOS guys decided to make a product from scratch that looked a lot like the Pear PC they would have been in the clear. If they'd decided to call it, let's say, another fruit as a reference to the other trademarked things it's related to, they'd be in the clear (oh, wait -- they did that one).

        It's when they actually copied the source code that they had a problem. Unless there's been some foul play in rooting o
    • by Tim C ( 15259 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @09:15AM (#11925459)
      Well, I don't know about the US, but here in the UK designs can be legally protected, so this could well be infringing under that law. Also, by calling it the "Super Shuffle" they're almost certainly going to fall foul of trademark law under a "confusingly similar" clause (Apple *has* tmed the name "Shuffle", right?)
    • I believe it's the "You can't just copy someone elses work and sell it as your own" law, also known as Copyright. I bet you were one of the first to complain that CherryOS was ripping off PearPC.
    • Here [todaysengineer.org]'s a brief definition of trademark:

      A trademark is anything that identifies the source (origin) of a product or service or that signifies sponsorship or approval of the goods. Trademarks include names, words, logos and product packaging, as well as distinctive non-functional visual aspects of the software, such as icons or user interface designs.

      Do you still argue that no trademark is being infringed here?
    • I don't think there are any trademarks that have been hit and other than that they just kind of look the same and have similar functionality.

      It appears that they copied the package design of the iPod Shuffle, along with the term"Shuffle" in relation to a brand of music players.

      Apple has trademark on the term "Shuffle" when used in relation with portable music players. Dell can't sell the "Dell Shuffle" music player unless they ask Apple first. (On the flip side, maybe they could sell the Dell Shuffle P
      • The term shuffle has been use for far too long in relation to music players for Apple to take the use of the word shuffle for itself. They can have "iPod Shuffle" if they want. Otherwise would they go after everyone whose hardware has a shuffle feature and calls it "shuffle"?
    • By producing a nearly identical product to Apple's and giving it a nearly identical name, Luxpro is clearly trying to make consumers believe they are buying an Apple product. I mean, it's so blatant they're even ripping off the advertising.

      Apple can, and will, go after them for trademark issues because of the product's name, and trade dress issues because of the appearance of the device.

      If you're not familiar with it, trade dress is when two products "kind of look the same" enough (in the eyes of a court of law) that consumers could be fooled into thinking cheap knockoff B is actually name-brand product A. Trade dress infringement claims are how Apple killed off those cheesy all-in-one PCs with a blue and white/translucent color scheme [macspeedzone.com] that quickly appeared after the original iMac [epower2go.biz] was released.

      ~Philly
  • Fun stuff (Score:3, Funny)

    by mr_Spook ( 458791 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @08:49AM (#11925369) Homepage
    Why I can already hear Jobs smashing extra Newtons already,..
  • by zegebbers ( 751020 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @08:49AM (#11925370) Homepage
    their's isn't super! :(
  • Hmmm... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @08:50AM (#11925377)
    I saw this a week or so ago, and the first thing what wandered through my mind was not 'They are going to get sued' but 'So this is the OEM version of the Shuffle eh?'.

    There has been a lot of speculation that Apple never designed the Shuffle but bought it in from outside, guess we will find out if and when Apple sue over it.
    • Re:Hmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Skuld-Chan ( 302449 )
      If you look at any ipod actually there all made in Taiwan - I highly doubt its an Apple manufacturing concern in Formosa however. It wouldn't be too hard for some company to take the blueprints from their assembly line and start making their own ipods.
  • Innovation (Score:3, Insightful)

    by thewiz ( 24994 ) * on Sunday March 13, 2005 @08:50AM (#11925378)
    Are businesses REALLY interested in innovation or just being copycats? I foresee a lawsuit coming out of this blatant duplication of the shuffle.
    • C'mon now, you know that innovation is only important if it's profitable. Copying a current, successful design sounds profitable, so who cares if it's innovative?
  • by danimrich ( 584138 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @08:52AM (#11925386) Homepage Journal
    Only good products get copied over and over.
  • Why no AM radio? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @08:55AM (#11925399)
    This lawsuit-bait would almost be worth considering if it had an AM radio. I wonder why these things include FM radio only. Perhaps the AM radio hardware is much more expensive. Regardless, it is much less useful without it. An FM radio is sort of redundant. I use FM radio for music, and there are already music files on the player. I use AM radio for news, and there aren't news MP3's.
    • Most cheap MP3 players are built using standard chips that come with FM tuning and voice recording as standard. All you need is the firmware to activate the functionality.

      AM would mean extra hardware (antenna and the rest) so is out of the question.
      • It doesn't (Score:2, Informative)

        by pslam ( 97660 )
        Most cheap MP3 players are built using standard chips that come with FM tuning and voice recording as standard. All you need is the firmware to activate the functionality.

        The iPod Shuffle uses a Sigmatel Stmp3550, which doesn't have a built in FM tuner. There's an external tuner chip which only supports FM.

    • by Detritus ( 11846 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @09:43AM (#11925552) Homepage
      A decent AM radio antenna (ferrite rod) would be way too large to fit in the case.
    • i think AM radio broadcast requires a loop of antenna where the area of the loop determines the reception quality. even if you put the antenna wire on the outer edge of mp3 players, it offers minimal area coverage.

      FM, on the other hand, length of the antenna determines the reception quality - the headphone wire is a perfect place for that, i think.

  • *Yawn* (Score:2, Insightful)

    by PeeAitchPee ( 712652 )
    I doubt it has tight integration with iTunes, which is a major selling point of the various iPods.
    • Re:*Yawn* (Score:5, Insightful)

      by displaced80 ( 660282 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @09:24AM (#11925491)
      Oddly enough, on the Mac, it probably will do (at least, with iTunes itself, not the Store).

      iTunes Mac has just worked with every single MP3 player I've ever plugged into my Mac. Creative Zen thingies all the way down to little no-name USB players. iTunes grants Mac-using owners of these devices almost every bit of functionality that they'd get with an iPod.

      However, iTunes on the Windows side works only with the iPod.
  • by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @08:58AM (#11925406)

    1. Make it black

    2. Make the circular control area square.

    3. Make it narrower (even if it means making it longer to cram the electronics in). This is one area where it would actually improve on the real Shuffle, which is just too wide, especially where it plugs in, requiring a USB extension cable or unplugging the other plugs that are crammed in near the USB plug.

    • # 1. Make it black
      # 2. Make the circular control area square.
      # 3. Make it narrower


      I guess what you aren't realizing is that it isn't a mere coincidence that this thing looks just like the iPod Shuffle. If they make the changes you suggested, they've failed in their goal of getting sales by confusing consumers into buying their product.

      Many non-tech users (a big slice of the Shuffle's market) may not notice the difference in the store, especially since these guys ripped of the advertising.
  • The only justification for lack of LCD is that you use iTunes to operate your iPod Shuffle. If you don't use iTunes smart playlists and iTunes autofill option, iPod Shuffle is actually quite worthless. It has no LCD because some elements of its UI are incorporated into iTunes. "Fake Shuffle" has no LCD either, but you have no software to make it out for you.
    • Another poster mentioned that this may actually be the OEM version of the iPod shuffle.

      Since it has nearly identical hardware, it might work with iTunes?
    • Has anyone checked to see if it uses a little file called "ItunesDB"?

      Inquiring minds want to know!
    • The only justification for lack of LCD is that you use iTunes to operate your iPod Shuffle.

      I'm sure this will work just as well with iTunes as the Magc Star "Gray Whale" player that both this product and the iPod Shuffle are cloned from does. The only difference is that Finder or Windows Explorer was the UI for the "Gray Whale".
  • The real question.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by lennywood1 ( 571226 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @09:01AM (#11925411) Homepage
    So how much are they? can they undercut apple but a significant amount?

    even if they're a blatant ripoff, I'd buy one if they were cheap.

  • by yardbird ( 165009 ) * on Sunday March 13, 2005 @09:03AM (#11925418) Homepage
    Looks like LuxPro is about to discover the iSue.
  • It's been a while since the business with the original iMac ripoff, so my memory might be a bit fuzzy, but I think the shuffles might be even more identical than the teardrop computers.

    Then again, maybe not [impress.co.jp].
  • Not only the Shuffle (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Conspire ( 102879 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @09:05AM (#11925421) Homepage
    I am here at CeBit and have been a bit amazed at a couple of look a like iPod mini's and iPod's as well. Apple will easily stop this in the US under "trade dress" litigation.

    I also wondered, what are they (the manufacturers that knock off almost exact copies) thinking!?
  • by ellem ( 147712 ) * <{moc.liamg} {ta} {25melle}> on Sunday March 13, 2005 @09:07AM (#11925426) Homepage Journal
    They are totally different.

    Apple's is a Shuffle, or iShuffle, or iPodensmallened, or something.

    Lux Pro's is Super. I mean by adding the word Super it is clear that they are disrespectful to dirt. Can you not see they are serious? Get out of their way, all of you! This is no place for loafers. Join them or die. Can you do any less? For lucky best mp3, use Super Shuffle.
  • Get over it (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Zilch ( 138261 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @09:08AM (#11925432)
    Yes, it's a bit on the cheeky side, but get over it.

    - Apple wasn't the first company to make an MP3 player
    - Apple wasn't the first company to make an MP3 player that did suffle
    - Apple wasn't the first company to make an MP3 player without a display
    - Apple wasn't the first company to make an MP3 player that plugged into a USB port
    - Apple wasn't the first company to make something shaped like a USB key/stick/dongle

    Apple is primarily a marketing machine.

    Zilch.
    • Re:Get over it (Score:4, Insightful)

      by zpok ( 604055 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @10:30AM (#11925764) Homepage
      "Apple is primarily a marketing machine."

      Yes indeed, just like Sony, Philips, Renault, Toyota and most other high quality makers of commodity goods.

      Marketing means finding out what people want, finding out what people need and then making it and getting it sold. Sounds simple, no? It isn't. One of the reasons is that people mostly forget about the what people need part or the getting it sold part.

      And anyway, the making it part isn't simple either, since you have to combine design and engineering with marketing. Look at all the high quality unusable products out there or the good looking crap and you see what I mean.

      Another thing: people confuse advertising with marketing... Good marketing deserves good advertising, but good advertising doesn't sell crappie products, at least not too many times at the same people.

      For companies like Apple and Philips (one of the inventors of good marketing) saying they're primarily marketing companies is high praise indeed
  • Hey... (Score:2, Funny)

    by AliasMoze ( 623272 )
    You can't, like, trademark a product's look, feel, and functionality, man.

    What? You can? Oh. Yeah, those guys are screwed.
  • by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @09:29AM (#11925512)
    How about a new name for this, Lux? "EyePawed: Shah-phel"
  • Does the US trademark laws even have any relevance in Taiwan? It may not matter that this is a knock-off ( with more features )

  • They probably make them in the factory next door to the clone factory they make the iPod Shuffle in.

    When Steve Jobs got on stage in 2004 and poo-poohed flash music players, concentrating on the high end, I was livid. He was talking about flash music players as if the big bulky high-end were the only possible competition. I immediately went to Apple's site and sent in a suggestion that if they thought flash music players were $200 behemoths they ought to have a look at the music player I'd bought for my daughter back in late 2002 or early 2003. It cost me $70 and it had the minimum features imaginable... no screen, no way to select specific songs, you just plugged it in like a flash drive and copied MP3 files over... and it played them in whatever random order they landed in memory.

    I had even figured out the way to use iTunes with this player to get the equivalent of what they later called their "Autofill" function using their Party Shuffle. Sure, it only held a couple CDs worth of songs, but you could reload them when you recharged the battery overnight... so who cared?

    Apart from the "reshuffle" ability, and the memory size (after all, this was 3 years ago), it was functionally identical to what Apple released a year later as the iPod Shuffle. It was a little bigger than the shuffle, but not much, and even hung from a lanyard like the Shuffle does. Oh, Apple's definitely done their usual wonderful job of [re]design... but all in all the Shuffle is just a few tweaks applied to the Magic Star "Gray Whale" MP3 player:

    http://pc-memory-upgrade.co.uk/memory/magic-star -m p3-player.asp
    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t g/detail/-/B000 08AJSO/002-0805304-2818432?v=glance

    The killer feature of the Shuffle, for me, is that the 512M Shuffle is cheaper than the 512M "Gray Whale"! This may be the first time in memory that an Apple product was less expensive than the third-party equivalent... but it's got a lot less of Apple in it than most people seem to think.
  • About LUXPRO (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Detritus ( 11846 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @09:57AM (#11925617) Homepage
    LUXPRO CORPORATION is recognized by a technological group. They work in researching, designing, and innovation products for over 30 years. LUXPRO always insists to provide you comfortable customer services and high quality products to match your requirements.

    We will keep going to be a designing leader. Our products are always so useful to meet what you need. Our mission is to improve your living quality and to create your life value. If you can imagine it, LUXPRO CORPORATION can make it.

    No matter how old you are, what you do, or where you live, chances are a LUXPRO CORPORATION product touches your life.

    All your base are belong to us.
    -- Apple Lawyer

  • by Lars T. ( 470328 ) <{Lars.Traeger} {at} {googlemail.com}> on Sunday March 13, 2005 @10:02AM (#11925634) Journal
    Heise News article (in German) [heise.de] and the Google-Translation [google.com] (replace "conditions" with "booth", and it makes more sense). LuxPro had removed the notPod from their booth on Friday, but put it up again on Saturday.
  • quite common (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Chanc_Gorkon ( 94133 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <nokrog>> on Sunday March 13, 2005 @10:04AM (#11925639)
    This kind of ripoff is actually quite common. I see Rbok and Nke shoes all of the time and they are cheaply made direct copies of the originals. In fact, many Chinese factories that make the original will also do the ripoffs using the same equipment, just different grades of electronics, plastices and other items. It even goes as far as cars. I read a article in Time where knock offs cost not just the computer industry, but almost every industry on the planet. Callaway golf clubs, Yamaha Motorcycles, Nikon cameras, etc etc....

    I bet this Super Shuffle does not even work with Apple's DRM'd files.
  • Interesting WHOIS (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Chanc_Gorkon ( 94133 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <nokrog>> on Sunday March 13, 2005 @10:24AM (#11925734)
    Administrative Contact:
    hotels.com.tw
    tom lin (host@hotels.com.tw)
    7F.-2, No.10, Shaosing N. St., Jhongjheng District, Taipei City -
    Taipei, tw, tw
    P: +886.223912558 F: +886.223912650

    Technical Contact:
    hotels.com.tw
    tom lin (host@hotels.com.tw)
    7F.-2, No.10, Shaosing N. St., Jhongjheng District, Taipei City -
    Taipei, tw, tw
    P: +886.223912558 F: +886.223912650

    Billing Contact:
    hotels.com.tw
    tom lin (host@hotels.com.tw)
    7F.-2, No.10, Shaosing N. St., Jhongjheng District, Taipei City -
    Taipei, tw, tw
    P: +886.223912558 F: +886.223912650

    Is the Shuffle made in Taiwan as well?
  • Booth Pic (Score:5, Interesting)

    by phoxix ( 161744 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @10:57AM (#11925891)
    http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2005/03/super _shuffle_f.html [ubergizmo.com]

    The Shuffle wasn't the only thing they copied ....
    • Re:Booth Pic (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Maserati ( 8679 )
      An "OEM" iPod Shuffle, that's one thing. But ripping off the design aesthetics from the iPod advertising campaign is just stupid. Put the two together and they're in serious legal trouble. Anyone who's red-green colorblind won't be able to tell the two campaigns apart. And I think that's the same font - hard to tell in the photo.

      If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then these guys are begging to have Steve Jobs' love child.
  • audio quality (Score:5, Interesting)

    by line.at.infinity ( 707997 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @02:01PM (#11926748) Homepage Journal
    It might be pointed out that one of the chief negatives against the entire iPod line is that it possess lower audio quality than competing manufacturers.

    This is the first time reading someone being concerned over the iPods' audio quality. I've read reports on the contrary, where audiophiles could not find problems with it. I wonder what the Consumer Reports report had to say, which the web page author refers to.

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