Apple Ordered to Halt iPhone 6 Sales in Beijing Over Patent Infringement Ruling [Updated]

[ChrisCW11]

The worst thing about this is that while China can block Apple sales in China and Chinese companies can sue for infringement, Apple can't do the same unless the Chinese phone is exported to the US and other markets, even when Chinese companies make blatant iPhone clones and clones of other Apple products to sell exclusively to the Chinese market.

This is the problem with selling to China, they do not participate in a global patent and copyright system and they have massive engineering firms set up exclusively to reverse engineer and duplicate technology from overseas. Since they have a built-in market of a billion people, and a huge and growing middle class sector, there is no reason for Apple to be sold there and Apple won't get the kind of sales they were ever hoping for there.

 

[69Mustang]

I think this could hurt china more. If china continues to do things like this to foreign companies, I think it will change the minds of at least some think of investing in china. Protectionism is never good in any country. Apple should be looking to move their assembly plant elsewhere and make it clear to china that they will looks a significant employer if they keep up the antics.

I think this should give Tim significant reason to pause and rethink their china policy. If they keep investing only for something like this to happen, then it really is a bad investment.

How would it hurt China if Apple moved their assembly? Business tend to operate with an eye towards the bottom line. Some other business would move in to fill the void, either another American company or a foreign one. Even if no company moved in, the Chinese gov't would care. People losing jobs? Pssh. Chinese customers losing access to Apple products? Yawn. A totalitarian gov't doesn't give two whits about a single company. Apple holds no power in a battle with China's govt. Companies that operate in China operate there with full knowledge of how the system works. Yet they still operate there. None of them have any sympathy for Apple or care about what's happening with them. Simply because it's happened to them as well. They all, including Apple, accept it as a cost of doing business.

 

[KPandian1]

The price of trying to look like an Android clone from the iPhone 6!

This is Chinese corruption that is blatant because they don't care about the rest of the world's opinion.

As for the iPhone trade mark, some patent lawyer at Apple messed up!

Why did Apple not just buy that leather company, via proxy, along with that "Chinese" patent?

 

[El Hikaru]

Apple or anyone cannot have a legal battle in China. Their court system is not independent from jurisdiction or bureau like in US. The communist party controls military, congress, administration, and supreme court. Apple needs to make communist party happy. They like to be treated important. Tim should take pictures with President Xi and post to facebook. Make a gold cased Mac rather than aluminum case, and send to the children of high ranked communist party officers. Oh and, China does not like India or Japan. Apple should appear to prioritize China over India and Japan. It is childish, but that is what it takes to do some business in China.

 

[ChrisCW11]

Everything about China makes me sick. Their way of dealing with anything foreign is disgusting, communist scum. They will never topple the might USA (I'm not even American)

Well, China is starting to export labor to the USA because of places like Detroit where the economy and unemployment are forcing people to work below minimum wages. China has a growing middle class and upper class sector that will rival the combination of all middle and upper class from any (or if not all) G8 countries combined. China has also bankrolled the US for years now as the US debt has crossed over several fiscal cliffs a few times already.

In a word, China HAS toppled the USA.

The first mistake the US made that ended their era as an economic superpower was to turn China into their factory for stocking Walmart's with cheap **** because American's don't like to spend the kind of money on retail goods that would keep American's employed.

 

[Orlandoech]

wow really? its not surprising the Chinese are ruling in favor of the Chinese... This is a joke.
China literally copies everything from everyone.

Literally everything? I think you meant figuratively.

 

[57004]

I don't understand what's the problem with "My country first". Here in Canada, some complain about "America First" down south, but why wouldn't you put your country first?

It's a problem when the law is abused in favour of local companies.

Chinese companies are the #1 when it comes to copying stuff (badly). In fact that 100c phone looks like a knockoff of the original iPhone more than anything. And it's like any other current smartphone. This ruling is nonsensical. I'm sure it was politically motivated.

 

[VulchR]

Breaking news: Chinese company patents raindrops on lock screen backgrounds....

What a load of PRC nonsense.

 

[pat500000]

Haha Tim..your biggest dependency became a liability. Throw all your money if you want....but keep doing and you might end up with another Steve Wozniak in the garage to come up another Apple computer.

You should focus on all sectors....and now it's karma time!

 

[X38]

Apple needs to prove to China that if they want to play this way, Apple is willing and able to pull their manufacturing out of China.

 

[doctor-don]

Is a WORLD patent body in existence?

Who copied whom?

 

[seatton]

People make fun of my small Asian eyes all the time, but let's face it, Apple really copies their design / s

 

[Arthur75]

Interesting, GO China GO !
Apple didn't release new MBPs at the WWDC ?
They should be punished for that
And not by a little
They should be SEVERILY punished
I need to change my MBP !

 

[Belgique]

Oh, the irony...China...

From a nation that knocks off Dior and thousands of others....including Windows....now they say
they invented the iPhone....the only thing that will wake these people up is a dramatic slow down
in customs from China into the US....say a month for each and every item. Business ethics is not part of their Communist system but Dog Eating Festival is.

 

[asfdasdf]

Well, China is starting to export labor to the USA because of places like Detroit where the economy and unemployment are forcing people to work below minimum wages. China has a growing middle class and upper class sector that will rival the combination of all middle and upper class from any (or if not all) G8 countries combined. China has also bankrolled the US for years now as the US debt has crossed over several fiscal cliffs a few times already.

In a word, China HAS toppled the USA.

The first mistake the US made that ended their era as an economic superpower was to turn China into their factory for stocking Walmart's with cheap **** because American's don't like to spend the kind of money on retail goods that would keep American's employed.

Cool story, but that's a lot to say. Ehh, no, it hasn't. China is still an overheated 2nd world country based mainly on manufacturing, they still have a long long way to go to even be considered in the same league as the US. Not to talk about military power. Fact is american entrepreneurship, services sector, finance, information technologies and tech (conceptually, as forward thinking advances) in general are in a class of their own. And I'm not american. Tell me when oil is negotiated in yuans, or when the main stock market is the chinese, or when silicon valley isn't the paradise of tech and the origin of all the biggest tech advances for the last decades. Or when NY is not The City. Or when very skilled professionals from all over the world prefer to work in China than in the US. Then we'll talk about the defeated US.

 

[iamnotme]

This is fairly comic..... Did Monty Python write a script for this? It's a rectangle with a Color screen and you plug it in to charge it. The iPhone is a knock off.....

 

[69Mustang]

Literally everything? I think you meant figuratively.

Zaft was literally using the urban dictionary meaning of literally.

 

[Infinitewisdom]

Apple needs to prove to China that if they want to play this way, Apple is willing and able to pull their manufacturing out of China.

I don't think China cares, quite honestly. And I think Apple needs to stop pandering to the Chinese market and just go back to making super desirable products that the market wants. Let the market in China push the government to keep its hands off Apple.

 

[Jay42]

Or what? We'll send our current crop of politicos after them lol - do you have any idea how much American debt they hold? Do you have any idea the predicament we're in vis-a-vis China?

First of all, the fact that China, the country, holds American debt doesn't give them any special leverage over what US-based companies can or can't do. The debt is bought and sold on the open market.

Their IP policy and law is so backwards, though, that it is stymying their own economic growth. Yes, they are becoming a superpower despite their IP law, but it will ultimately hold them back. Apple has the resources to fight this. They probably have countless Chinese-based and international attorneys seeking every angle to defeat this injunction. Now consider how many foreign companies simply choose not to invest in China because the economic climate is so hostile. You'll never hear those news stories because they never leave the boardroom.

 

[69Mustang]

Apple needs to prove to China that if they want to play this way, Apple is willing and able to pull their manufacturing out of China.

How exactly would this hurt China?

 

[ggibson913]

How do these look alike exactly? Rectangles maybe?

 

[AZREOSpecialist]

Screw China and slap import tariffs on all things Chinese!!!

 

[PaulRustad007]

Only in China does a multi-billion dollar international company get halted by a knock-off producer. If China wants to be taken as a serious modern economy, they need to overhaul their IP law and culture.

They have an IP Law and Culture? Really? They are a communist country...they can do what they want to do when they want to do it.....

 

[Skika]

China is ripping us companies off in order to protect its own? Guess Trump doesnt sound so crazy when you think about it

 

[johnnyturbouk]

I feel China is at war with Apple, with a combination of snubs, contempt, and open accounts of distrust; I ponder why apple remains in China, if the government is seemingly so anti-Apple. Most countries would bend over backwards to host the bulk manufacturing and processing of apple products, and i find it very unbelievable the net money Apple brings in compares to the net sales apple makes in China. Steve would have upped the proverbial middle finger and stormed out, I feel Tim is pandering to the authoritative authorities of China as they believe the Asian markets has potential to make apple billions, if not trillions more in surplus cash reserves. This is willfully ignoring the growing anti-Apple, pro-capitalist, and anti-western sentiments.