GizChina reports today that a Chinese company has used leaked iPhone 5 pictures to slap together a knock-off phone (running ICS no less ) and patent the device in China. This of course means that if Apple tries to sell the new iPhone in China the company will be set to sue. The phone is actually pretty beastly; here are the (known) specs:
Goophone I5
- Nvidia Tegra 3 Quad-Core 1.4 Ghz Processor
- 1 GB RAM
- 8 MP Camera
- 4" True 1080P Screen (1280 x 720)
- Android ICS (4.0.x) Operating System (with an iOS theme )
* Not sure why it carries the Honeycomb logo if the device is rocking ICS
While it certainly is funny that this company is sticking it to Apple a bit, I am not quite sure how I feel about this. The entire reason I (and I am sure plenty of you guys) don't like Apple is because they stifle innovation and attempt to prevent progress in the name of profits. I don't claim to know anything about how our patent system works, but I was not aware that you could slap a patent on something like this. Since the design closely follows previous iPhone designs (we all know Apple owns 'rectangles with rounded corners ), I would not be surprised if the Goophone manufacturer does not end up getting sued themselves. It will be interesting to see how this scenario plays out.