Dbrand is suing Casetify for ripping off its Teardown designs

Dbrand, the hardware maker known for brands like Sony and Nintendo, is waging a legal battle of its own. The company is suing rival Casetify over claims it blatantly copied Dbrand’s Teardown device covers and cases, which are designed to look like the insides of whatever phone, tablet or laptop you’ve purchased them for. (It’s also offering some new forms of X-rays the same day the lawsuit is unveiled.)

Dbrand first unveiled its Teardown products in 2019 in partnership with JerryRigEverything (Zack Nelson), a YouTuber who breaks down new devices and sometimes gives them away. Transparent adjustments. Teardown covers and cases make it look as if you’ve completely disassembled your device and placed it on a transparent background – when in reality it’s just a vinyl sticker or case that you place your phone in.

Although it’s very easy to stick a sticker on the back of your phone, there’s still a lot of work involved in making the designs. Dbrand has to carefully disassemble the devices it wants to create a Teardown design for, whether it’s an iPhone 15, iPhone 14, Google Pixel 8, MacBook Pro or Galaxy Z Flip 5. It then scans their internals using a commercial device. And places the image in the editing program. There, he makes various adjustments, such as removing screws, ribbon cables and wires, as well as moving some components to make sure the design fits on the back of the phone, laptop or tablet before making prints.

Casetify allegedly took all this work to use in its own phone cases. Within 24 hours of Dbrand’s lawsuit being made public, Casetify pulled the offending case set from sale on its website while insisting that “It has always been a bastion of originality“.

It all started when Casetify launched a similar line of phone cases, called Inside Parts, which similarly places a photo of the components inside your phone from the outside. However, users noticed that something wasn’t quite right with the designs. in March, 1 user on X (formerly Twitter) He noted that Casetify appears to reuse an image of the same internals across different phone models, meaning it doesn’t accurately represent the internals of every device it’s sold for.

Dbrand called out Casetify’s apparent error video Posted on Just months after Dbrand posted its response to Casetify, the company is back with a new line of phone cases with a clear design called Inside Out.

This time, the images match the devices the cases were made for — and Dbrand claims that’s because Casetify stole its designs. However, Dbrand claims that Casetify also tried to hide the copycats by rearranging parts of the designs to make them look a little different. (You can see an example of this in the video embedded above.)

There is some strong evidence to support Debrand’s accusations as well. Dbrand spotted several Easter eggs it planted within its own designs on Casetify’s Inside Out products. This includes the “R0807” tag, which refers to the Dbrand logo as a brand run by robots, as well as JerryRigEverything’s catchphrase “Glass is glass and glass breaks.”

After sifting through photos of cases on Casetify’s website — and even asking some to confirm its suspicions — Dbrand discovered that Casetify had copied 117 different designs, right down to numerous digital manipulations it had performed on the images. Dbrand says it holds the registered copyright to each of these products, all of which were registered prior to the launch of the Casetify product.

“If CASETiFY had simply created its Teardown design from scratch, we wouldn’t have anything to contend with,” says Adam Ijaz, CEO of Dbrand. the edge. “We don’t think dbrand has the idea to disassemble and scan phones. The fact of the matter is that they repurposed our existing designs for their own products, and then went to great lengths to hide their illegal takeover of our work.

That’s why, instead of issuing a cease-and-desist order, Dbrand is hitting Casetify with a federal lawsuit in Canadian courts, where the company is based, seeking eight-figure damages. Casetify gave no warning either — which eventually led to the cases in question being pulled from Casetify’s site sometime within 24 hours of the lawsuit going public. You can You still see an archived copy Courtesy of Wayback Machine.

“We are currently investigating a copyright claim against us,” says Caseify. In a statement on X. “We have immediately removed all designs in question from all platforms.” The company also says it is looking into a DDOS attack that “crashed” its website “when the allegation surfaced.”

Dbrand is also launching a brand new range of X-Ray skins across its entire portfolio today which are somewhat different to the Teardown ones – they’re black and white, captured at 50 micron resolution by a lab called Haven Metrology, and details show that won’t be visible once removed. Back cover for your phone, laptop or handheld gaming device.

While Ejaz tells us he doesn’t want anyone to think the lawsuit is a cash grab, the timing of the new skins doesn’t seem to be a coincidence; JerryRigEverything video The lawsuit prominently features new X-Ray skins, and Nelson twice suggests that fans can purchase one to support legal efforts against CASETiFY.

Disclosure: The Verge recently collaborated with Dbrand Series of leathers and cases.

Updated November 24, 6:30 a.m. ET: The text has been updated to note that Casetify has removed the accused cases from its website.

Updated November 24, 9:41 a.m. ET: Added statement from Casetify.