In case you forgot all about the nasty Apple vs Samsung cases of years ago, here's a new case to remind us of those times where the notion of how different a rectangle of plastic/glass/metal would need to be to be safe from such claims - but this time it's Apple that's accused of copying its iPhone design.
The Chinese 100C company claims Apple's iPhone 6/6S is copying their 100+ smartphone design. An should you take this matter lightly, Apple surely won't, as this claim got the offending iPhones sales suspended in Beijing.
Apple is already fighting back this claim so it can resume sales as soon as possible, but now it's anyone's guess if the Beijing Intellectual Property Office will side with Apple, or against it. If 100C really does have its design registered before Apple, I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple ending up paying a few dozen (or hundred) millions to settle it as quickly as possible - as not being able to sell iPhones in Chine would be far costlier in the long run.
Let's see how this turns out and, perhaps even more important, if this is just the beginning of a trend that might be considered as an added "tax" foreign companies will have to pay to be able to do business in China.
No comments:
Post a Comment