The rash of unauthorized stores that are selling either real or knock off Apple items seems to be continuing in China. Reuters reports that the country's government has found that 22 more stores in the city of Kunming are illegally selling Apple products. The government has order those stores to discontinue using Apple's trademarked logo. The article did not say if the products that are being sold are real Apple device or knock-offs. In addition to the crackdown on the stores in Kunming, China claims it is setting up a hotline to record further complaints from the public and will improve the monitoring for finding more of these kinds of stores.
This is just the latest development in a case that began in July when an American blogger discovered that an entire Apple store in Kunming had been "faked', complete with the Apple logo and employees who thought they were working in a real Apple store. In fact there are only four real Apple retail locations in China, all of them in Bejing. Since the discovery, Chinese officials shut down two of these kinds of stores but only because they didn't have the proper business permits.
While the government of China claims that it is trying to crack down on unauthorized Apple retailers, the article points out that China's enforcement of trademark and copyright laws can be hit-and-miss. Indeed, the US and other countries often cite China as one of the biggest locations in the world to obtain pirated materials and products.
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