Manufacturers of the GooPhone, an iPhone knock-off sold in China, have patented their latest design based on the leaked specifications of Apple’s upcoming iPhone 5, which could mean big trouble for the new smartphone’s release in China.
The GooPhone i5 adheres to all the rumoured specifications of the iPhone 5 design, including a 4-inch display, smaller dock connector, larger external speaker grills and a headphone jack at its base.
One big difference, of course, is that this device won’t run on iOS but instead comes with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich – but with an iOS 6 theme. It also packs an Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM and an 8MP camera.
According to Gizchina, GooPhone has gone so far as to patent this design in China, which could present a problem when the iPhone 5 launches next week. GooPhone could potentially sue Apple and block sales of its new device in China.
Though we’re fairly certain Apple will come out of this situation relatively unscathed, it’s still funny to see a knock-off manufacturer trying to beat a tech giant at the patents-wielding game.
