CASETiFY built a US$300M brand on creativity, then copied Dbrand's Easter eggs

CASETiFY built a US$300 million business on custom phone cases that let customers express themselves. In late 2023 it launched the 'Inside Out' line, a series of cases showing the internal components of devices — the same concept Dbrand had sold for years under the 'Teardown' name.

The copying was not subtle. Dbrand's Teardown skins contained hidden Easter eggs — inside jokes and deliberate imperfections that served as watermarks. CASETiFY's Inside Out line reproduced them. YouTuber Zack Nelson (JerryRigEverything) demonstrated the match in a video published on 23 November 2023. Within hours Dbrand had filed a multi-million-dollar federal lawsuit in Illinois.

CASETiFY's website went down during the backlash. When it returned, the Inside Out line was gone. The company said it was investigating and blamed the downtime on a DDoS attack. The next day iFixit joined the accusations, showing that CASETiFY had also used iFixit's X-ray image of an iPhone X without permission.

The case (1:24-cv-01919) continued into 2025. CASETiFY denied the allegations and filed counterclaims. No settlement has been announced.