Dbrand is suing Casetify for copying its ‘Teardown’ device skins

There has been some sudden drama in the phone case market this week. One of the most popular case makers, Casetify, is facing a lawsuit from Dbrand, after the company was found to have copied several of Dbrand's designs. 

Like Casetify, Dbrand also regularly partners up with popular YouTubers with sponsorships. JerryRigEverything, a popular YouTube channel with over 8 million subscribers, has a particularly involved partnership with Dbrand, with the two working together on a series of ‘Teardown' device skins, designed to show off what the inside of your laptop, smartphone or tablet looks like.

These skins are filled with a number of easter eggs, including a phrase JerryRigEverything regularly uses in his videos, as well as mentions of Dbrand's support social account, Robot, and references to the company's founding date, 11.11.11 – if that date seems familiar to you, it is also the day Skyrim came out.

Image credit: Dbrand

Casetify launched its own range of ‘Teardown' skins, containing almost identical designs, as well as the inclusion of Dbrand's easter eggs, such as the company's founding date, the Robot tag and JerryRigEverything's phrase “Glass is glass and glass breaks”. None of these easter eggs have anything to do with Casetify as a company.

In his video on the topic, JerryRigsEverything compares the skins, finding that they line up perfectly with each other. However, the Casetify image is somewhat lower quality, making it fairly clear that they did not do their own teardown device scans. It almost looks like they simply went to Dbrand's website, downloaded their images, added the Casetify logo and then resold the skins on their own site.

As a result, Dbrand has filed a lawsuit against Casetify in the US. Casetify is already well aware of the controversy too, as it swiftly took down the infringing skins from its website and put out a statement saying that they are “investigating” the situation.

KitGuru Says: If the easter eggs were removed from Casetify's versions of the Teardown cases, then they may have been able to save face but those details are particularly damning. Of course, Casetify would be free to do their own device teardowns, generate scans and then sell those skins. However, the little details left in certainly point to a much lazier, copy and paste approach here. 

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