The Chinese company which recently won an injunction against the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in Beijing barely exists, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found. You may recall that Apple is having a hard time in China, as the Beijing Intellectual Property Office has ruled that the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus violate the design patents of Baili, the manufacturer of the 100C smartphone, which is at the centre of the patent fight between the two tech companies.
Shenzen Baili and its parent company, Digione, challenged Apple in court in 2014 when the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were launched, claiming that the new devices violated their design patents. At the time, the Chinese company had bold aspirations, and Baidu was backing them.
Fast forward to today, when the ruling was handed down: Digione collapsed and has been absent from the Chinese smartphone market, but its Baili unit will continue the legal battle against Apple, a Digione lawyer told WSJ. Furthermore, they are even considering expanding the suit to the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus.
Digione, formerly known as Shenzhen City 100/100 Digital Technology Co., and Baili are both insolvent, according to their annual financial reports.
Meanwhile, Baidu discovered that Digione hadn’t used the money as expected, so it has initiated an arbitration case against Digione, a person familiar with the matter has informed the WSJ. Although it won the private arbitration case last year, it has yet to recoup its money.
You can read the full report on the company that claims the iPhones 6 and 6 Plus infringe its design patents by hitting this link.
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The funny part is that this company likely patented their design based on stolen images/designs of the iPhone 6.
In February 2014, some of the first published leaks of the iPhone 6 started circulating out of China. We can assume that those that leaked them (or those that provided them to the leakers) had them for some time before releasing the images. A couple weeks before the images from China were published, this nothing Chinese company files to patent the same design and then makes almost no effort to sell phones based on those designs. They sat and waited and the sued. Worse than patent trolls, these guys appear to have stolen a design and then sued the originator.
http://www.macrumors.com/2014/02/12/alleged-iphone-6-prototype/
http://www.wsj.com/articles/beijing-regulator-orders-apple-to-stop-sales-of-two-iphone-models-1466166711