Chinese brands get constantly harassed by Apple lawyers in the US about patents. Now that China is an important market for Apple, I find it hard to feel sorry for Apple getting a taste of their own medicine.
The big picture here is not whether this ruling is just. It's that China has protectionist impulses, and that if Apple is to maintain the kind of volume of smartphone sales that propelled it to its 2015 valuation, it needs China. And China may be inclined to throw up a bunch of nasty speedbumps in its way.<p>That said, there's plenty of value in Apple selling iPhones at the rate necessary to maintain the mostly saturated markets in the West, so don't get myopically focused on China.
"Design Patent", aka some look and feel thing that is stupidly vague.<p>I seem to remember in the Apple v. Samsung case there were several of these on concepts like "a rectangular phone form factor" or similar...
I don't read Chinese and the patent isn't translated. Anyone have any idea what Apple violated? It's interesting, in a country where you HAVE to give up IP to competing companies to enter the market, that there can be any IP disputes - considering much of what Apple has done is directly copied into Chinese goods.<p>If that rule didn't exist, China would be a 3rd world economy still stuck making shitty goods.
Strange that this only has any effect in Beijing, despite the company being based in Shenzhen. Do China's lowest-level courts only have citywide jurisdiction?<p>If US patent decisions only applied to the location a suit was tried in, I suppose we'd have a lot fewer filed in East Texas.
Play the patent game and you are bound to lose in the end, with no high tower to go preaching from about how <i>their</i> patents are trivial.<p>That said, I'm sure apple can afford to pay or lawyer their way out of this.
Apple will be able to appeal this and continue selling phones in the mean time. Pretty interesting regardless considering their investment in Didi last month to gain favor with Beijing.<p>Two possible takes are that this is either a low enough court that the judge had autonomy in his ruling and wasn't influenced by the investment, or Beijing is sending a message that the Didi investment will not grant Apple any sort of impunity going forward.
<a href="http://g04.a.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1qM3iHFXXXXayaXXXq6xXFXXXn/221820712/HTB1qM3iHFXXXXayaXXXq6xXFXXXn.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://g04.a.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1qM3iHFXXXXayaXXXq6xXFXXXn/221...</a><p>Anyone else see a resemblance to the 3gs, just a couple years slimmer? "Plastic rectangle with curved edges" is a design that Apple did forever ago (in smartphone time).
Always good to see 100% completely neutral rulings from local arms of the Chinese government that are unconnected to personal interests and otherwise without blatant conflicts of interest.
Given the design diversity that we might see from a large number of small phone producers, it seems inevitable that Apple may have something in common with one of these phones. I wonder if you get to a point where you can't change your design for fear of infringement.