Apple sues mobile device virtualisation company Corellium.
Corellium offers iOS, Android, and Linux virtualisation on ARM.
Among other things, Apple wants Corellium offering a product that replicates iOS.
Apple has filed a lawsuit against Corellium alleging that the mobile device virtualisation company has illegally replicated iOS and the applications that run on the iPhone and the iPad. The lawsuit has been filed in the Southern District of Florida against the company, which says it provides the “first and only platform” that offers iOS, Android, and Linux virtualisation on ARM. In simpler words, its creates virtual devices running on the mentioned platforms to allow researchers and hackers to find and test vulnerabilities.
Apple argues that Corellium’s iOS virtualisation product infringes on Apple's copyrights. The iPhone-maker says that Corellium has simply copied everything: the code, the graphical user interface, the icons — all of it, in exacting detail. In fact, at the two-day Black Hat USA conference that concluded on August 8, Corellium emphasised that its “Apple product” is an exact copy of iOS, macrumours reported.
“Corellium's business is based entirely on commercialising the illegal replication of the copyrighted operating system and applications that run on Apple's iPhone, iPad, and other Apple devices. The product Corellium offers is a ‘virtual’ version of Apple mobile hardware products, accessible to anyone with a web browser. Specifically, Corellium serves up what it touts as a perfect digital facsimile of a broad range of Apple's market-leading devices–recreating with fastidious attention to detail not just the way the operating system and applications appear visually to bona fide purchasers, but also the underlying computer code. Corellium does so with no license or permission from Apple,” the lawsuit says.
Apple also alleges that while Corellium poses its product as a research tool to discover security vulnerabilities, its actual goal is “profiting off its blatant infringement” by encouraging users to sell what they find on the open market to the highest bidder. Further, the Cupertino-based tech firm says that it does not want to obstruct “good-faith security research” but wants to end Corellium's “unlawful commercialization of Apple's valuable copyrighted works.”
“On information and belief, Corellium makes no effort whatsoever to confine use of its product to good-faith research and testing of iOS. Nor does Corellium require its users to disclose any software bugs they find to Apple, so that Apple may correct them. Instead, Corellium is selling a product for profit, using unauthorized copies of Apple's proprietary software, that it avowedly intends to be used for any purpose, without limitation, including for the sale of software exploits on the open market,” Apple alleged.
The company is seeking a permanent injunction so that Corellium stops offering a product that replicates iOS as well as it wants Corellium to destroy all infringing materials that it's collected, and pay Apple damages, lost profits, and attorney fees.
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