Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
On July 20th, we reported the story of a foreign blogger in China who discovered a fake Apple store in Kunming, China. A week later, we brought you the breaking story that there were, in fact, five fake Apple retail spaces in Kunming. Now, several weeks later, it turns out that there were not five Apple stores in Kunming, but twenty-seven. Yes, a two followed by a seven. Okay, we know Apple makes great technology and its portable consumer products, like the iPad2, are really hot right now. But this is quite literally ridiculous. For one thing, it shows a serious lack of originality, which has actually never been much of a concern in China’s shanzhai (fake goods) trade. China’s Administration for Industry and Commerce (AIC) has, of course, ordered all the stores to stop using Apple’s logo and its variants. This was after Apple China complained to the government yesterday, August 11th, about copyright and trademark infringement. Unfortunately, news reports cannot say at this time whether the fake Apple stores have been selling counterfeit Apple products, or legitimate products which have been smuggled into the country. The AIC has guaranteed that it will increase its vigilance in monitoring illegal Apple stores, and set up a complaint hotline to address the problem. In the meantime, still no word on whether Steve Jobs is putting on his angry face and hopping a plane to China. (Reuters – 27 Fake Apples in Kunming)
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Well, more retail fakery in good old Kunming. You may recall our recent reports on the fake Apple stores in this fair south China city. Still no word on how Steve Jobs is reacting to those fake bits of entrepreneurship, even though the Chinese government shut a couple of them down. Now it looks like Apple isn’t the only company to have its carefully considered and, oh yeah, trademarked retail appearance high-jacked by Chinese counterfeiters. Swedish home-furnishing and lifestyle giant Ikea is the latest to have its retail environment illegally copied, right down to the chair designs and the famous yellow and blue signage colors. In fact, pretty much everything but the meatballs. This is apparently a growing trend in China, where slick businesspersons are no longer content to merely create and sell fakes of famous-maker handbags and shoes. The Kunming store which copied Ikea’s retail look and feel is called 11 Furniture. But unlike the fake Apple stores which sell authentic merchandise, 11 Furniture does not make or sell authentic Ikea products. Customers who buy at 11 Furniture get furniture which is made to order and is not presented as real Ikea product. In our previous report about fake Apple stores, we briefly discussed the legal concept of trade dress, a form of intellectual property which describes the design of a product or the proprietary design of the building or retail environment in which the product is sold. At the link, you’ll get more details on how pervasive the problem of trade-dress ripoffs is getting in China. And even though 11 Furniture didn’t copy the meatballs, we’re kind of curious how lingonberry jam would taste on the minced braised pork the store does sell. (Reuters – Fake Kunming Ikea Store)
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Last week we reported the story of an American blogger in Kunming, China who discovered and nicely documented a fake Apple store in that city. Well, she didn’t find one, but three, or so we reported. But it turns out there are, or were, actually FIVE fake Apple stores happily selling iPods, iPads and Macbook Air computers, and other Apple gadgets. After the news broke here and in other media sources of the American blogger’s discovery, Chinese officials almost immediately descended on Kunming to confirm the existence of the fake Apple outlets and determine what to do about them. Well, it seems that Chinese laws regarding the legal concept of “trade dress” (the visual appearance of a product or the retail environment in which it is sold) are a bit different than they are in the EU or the U.S. Because despite the fact that all of the stores were faked to look almost exactly like a legitimate Apple store, three of them have been allowed to continue operation because they were found to be selling completely authentic Apple merchandise. The other two stores have had operations suspended while Chinese trade and law-enforcement officials investigate the authenticity of the Apple-branded merchandise offered for sale. We don’t know how Apple and Steve Jobs are reacting to this ongoing retail fiasco, but much of the news coverage we have reviewed is monitoring this story with healthy doses of both disbelief and bemusement. This surely does not mean that what these fake Chinese Apple shops are doing is right. It isn’t. But the situation is kind of funny when you think about it, and the story might make an entertaining documentary at the very least. (Asian Correspondent – Five Fake Kunming Apple Stores) Additional details about the two suspended stores can be read here.
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We turn now from the story of fake designer furniture in China, to the story of an expatriate blogger who has apparently found an entire counterfeit Apple store in the Yunnan Province city of Kunming. In fact, she thinks she found three, all within walking distance of the others. According to her report, which you can read at the link, the first clue that the first store she encountered was fake were the words “Apple Store” printed in proximity to the famous Apple logo on the front of the store and on various signs within it. Another clue was the employees’ name tags, which only identified the store’s gurus as ‘staff’ and not by name. In the blogger’s estimation, the store is definitely fake but “a beautiful one—the best ripoff store we had ever seen.” After you see the photos she took of the place, it’s pretty likely you’ll be inclined to agree. The striking thing, of course, is the apparent size and audacity of the construct. It certainly belies the stereotypical vision of shady vendors on the streets of Hong Kong or Shanghai selling fake goods or real goods of questionable origins out of rundown storefronts. (BirdAbroad blog – Amazing Fake Apple Store)
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