Apple Argues iPhone 6 Sales Ban in China was Unreasonable

Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus do not violate any design patent of a Chinese smartphone, and Chinese authorities should allow the sale of the product, the company argued on Wednesday in front of a Beijing court, China Daily reports.

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Six months ago, the Beijing Intellectual Property Office halted sales of the hot-selling iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, due to an alleged design patent infringement of a Chinese phone model called 100C. The smartphone was manufactured by Shenzhen Baili Marketing Service Co., a company that “barely exists”, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation.

Apple iphone 6 1

The Chinese company alleges it won the design patents in China two years before the iPhone 6 models hit the shelves in China. From the intellectual property office’s perspective, the difference between the iPhone 6 series and the 100C are too small to be noticed by average consumers (although price might be a giveaway), so it ordered Apple to stop selling the handsets.

Apple, highlighted 13 differences between the iPhone 6 series and the 100C and emphasized that average consumers can easily distinguish between the two phones, and, as a result, the intellectual property’s sales injunction “was not reasonable.”

After an eight-hour hearing, the Beijing court still doesn’t have a verdict.

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