Apple No Longer Allows Monster To Churn Out Licensed Accessories

It looks like the love affair between Monster LLC and Apple has hit some rough patches – especially after Monster stepped forward to say that Apple Inc. has already revoked its authority to churn out licensed accessories that are meant for Apple devices. While many can speculate as to the different reasons that this has happened, most folks would lean on the most likely theory – that this is “payback” of sorts after Monster and its CEO sued Beats Electronics LLC in January this year.

Do take note that Beats is now owned by Apple, after Cupertino snapped it up for $3.2 billion last year. It does feel as though Monster had been making licensed accessories since forever for Apple, ranging from Lightning charging cables to headphones, among others – and “forever” here means 2005, of course, under Apple’s MFi program (“Made for iPhone/iPod/iPad” program).

In the mean time, Monster is allowed to sell Apple-licensed accessories all the way through to September, although they will have to stop manufacturing new ones. One of the changes that will arise from Apple terminating the MFi agreement, Monster will need to make alterations to its packaging as well as get back to the drawing board where some of its products will have to be redesigned so that there is no risk of using licensed technology. I am not sure whether this “tussle” will end just like that, but it will be interesting to see how Monster picks up the pieces from here, and other companies might want to think twice about suing anything Apple in the near future.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Apple, Audio
Tags: beats, Legal, Monster