Complaint received from a competitor on iOS App Store

[Jeremie_L]

Wawwo executive shared a video and screenshot comparison with Apple

Video comparing PackPoint and Packr - https://youtu.be/Y2yD6ISgSMw

Screenshots comparing PackPoint and Packr - https://imgur.com/a/eWOvf

That’s a high level overview, I hope it is helpful. If any further detail is needed, please let me know.

With respect to Jeremie modifying Packr as not to be a “copycat” (https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#design section 4.1) of PackPoint, I’m not sure that any modifications will suffice. Packr is a copy of PackPoint and should be removed from the App Store.

I can see some similarities in both apps, as written in this topic, two apps aiming to achieve the same thing will certainly look similar.

The customize list feature look strangely similar, but granted that I never purchased PackPoint (customizing lists is a paid feature) any resemblance is purely coincidental.

However the packing items are different, PackPoint has more items in some lists, less items in other.

[David_Roe]

That is helpful, because you now know that this appears not to be an IP claim, but rather a claim under the TC of the Apple Store. To the initial response, now you know that the original complaint is really based on the copycat issue. Roughly 2% of all of the app store submissions were rejected under the ground that Wawwo is claiming. (See https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/rejections/).

The rule is “Don’t simply copy the latest popular app on the App Store, or make some minor changes to another app’s name or UI and pass it off as your own.” I think you have some good arguments to make. First, your application has different data for each of the functions that are listed, so you did not simply copy the data from one app to another. Instead you populated your own database based on your own research, and did not copy them. Demonstrate that the underlying data is very different. Second, your app has different functional choices (for example, nearby attractions are contemplated). Finally, point out that as of 2014, there were more than 140 packing apps located on the app store (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/advice/The-best-holiday-packing-apps/) indicating that there was a demand for different applications, with different data, and with design choices.

The applications may be similar, but if the claim is based on “copycat” pointing out forward facing differences (features) and inward facing differences (catagories, data for those catagories, etc.) should be helpful.

Glad this is not an IP claim!

[José_María_Terry_Jiménez]

May i be wrong but i think there is no software patents in Europe,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_the_European_Patent_Convention

[Michel_Bujardet]

Indeed, software is not patentable in Europe. But it is in the US. A few years ago I received a Cease and Desist letter from the lawyer of a competitor of mine because the guy has placed a patent on font ligatures, and a process by which a program would fetch them depending on the context.
I did not feel like dragging that into court, as frivolous as his case seemed to me, so I had to change my whole production thechnology.