In a rare public appearance, Jony Ive, Apple’s head of design, spoke at a conference earlier this week. He talked about Apple’s design process, of course. He also made a colorful remark in response to a question involving the Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi, the so-called “Apple of China.”
Xiaomi, the largest handset maker in China, sells smartphones that run Google’s Android software system. But critics have accused the company of blatantly copying Apple, from the design of Apple products to the way Apple introduces products at events.
An audience member at a Vanity Fair conference on Thursday asked Mr. Ive how he felt about companies that appear to be copying Apple, like Xiaomi. Mr. Ive minced no words:
“I’ll stand a little bit harsh, I don’t see it as flattery,” he said. “When you’re doing something for the first time, you don’t know it’s going to work. You spend seven or eight years working on something, and then it’s copied. I have to be honest, the first thing I can think, all those weekends that I could have at home with my family but didn’t. I think it’s theft, and it’s lazy.”
Representatives for Xiaomi did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But in a recent interview with The Verge, Hugo Barra, Xiaomi’s global vice president and a former Google executive, said accusations of Xiaomi copying Apple were “sweeping sensationalist statements.”
“We’re not copying Apple’s products,” he said. “End of story.”
This isn’t the first time Apple has called a competitor a thief. In the first big patent fight between Apple and Samsung Electronics in 2012, Apple accused Samsung of blatantly copying the design of the iPhone. Philip W. Schiller, Apple’s head of marketing, said that Samsung was “stealing all the value” Apple had created with the iPhone.
So if Mr. Ive believes Xiaomi is also a thief, his comment raises the question of whether Apple will pursue a legal case against Xiaomi like it did against Samsung. Apple declined to comment.
Some analysts have speculated that Apple would have a hard time going after Xiaomi in China because of the belief that China’s patent system is overwhelmingly protectionist of domestic businesses. However, Brian J. Love, a law professor for Santa Clara University, said the opposite was true.
From 2006 to 2011, foreign entities filed more than 40 percent of patent cases litigated in China’s most active courts, and won those cases more than a third of the time, Mr. Love said. “That win rate actually makes foreign litigants more successful in Chinese patent suits than Chinese patent owners,” he added.
That suggests Apple would not face an uphill battle in China after all.