Apple is warning users about buying counterfeit merchandise on Amazon. The company is also suing one of the big suppliers that was presenting its hardware as “original” or “genuine”, which was then sold by Amazon itself.
According to documents from the suit, posted by Patently Apple, the Cupertino-based company has been ordering and testing hundreds of Lightning cables and chargers that were being sold on Amazon as genuine Apple products. To nobody’s surprise the company found that nearly 90% of the items tested were in fact counterfeit, despite being sold and shipped directly by Amazon.
Besides the obvious infringement upon copyrights and trademarks, Apple is also warning that the fake merchandise can also pose serious risks because it doesn’t go through consumer safety testing. And there’s ample anecdotal evidence to go with Apple’s assertion, considering the number of devices that have caught fire due to faulty chargers.
Apple is now suing Mobile Star LLC, one of the companies that supplied counterfeit chargers and cables to Amazon. Apple is asking the court to issue an injunction against all the products developed by Mobile Star that infringe on its IP, to have the items destroyed, to have all the money that Mobile Star earned afforded to Apple, and to receive damages on the order of many millions of dollars.
Meanwhile Amazon said it had “zero tolerance for the sale of counterfeits” and that it was working with partners to ensure this doesn’t happen.
Source: Patently Apple
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