Less than a week after the publication of the first images of the stores Fake Apple from China, the authorities in the city of Kunming they decided to close 2 such stores. Apparently last week the Chinese authorities checked no less than 300 stores in Kunming province where Apple does not have any official store and decided that 2 of the establishments must be closed because they do not have a trade license. Of the 300 stores checked, only 5 were clones of Apple stores, but the 2 closed establishments are different from those presented last week by the international press.
Chinese officials in Kunming ordered two fake Apple shops to close, a local newspaper reported on Monday, an apparent reaction to a storm of media attention about an unauthorized and elaborate hoax store in the southwestern city. After an investigation of 300 shops in the city, officials found five self-branded "Apple Stores" to be operating without authorization from Apple Inc, the Metropolitan Times report, posted on the Kunming government website, said. All five shops were selling genuine Apple products but two were told to shut down because they did not have an official business license, it said. A local government official said two stores were being investigated because they did not have a business license.
The effort of the Chinese authorities and the speed with which they moved must be praised, but I assume that this is only the beginning of a much larger operation. If the shops presented last week have not yet been closed, this does not mean that they will have a long life because the verification of compliance with patents takes longer than the verification of a simple trade license. Probably in the following days/weeks we will learn more about other operations of this kind, but it remains to be seen how many of them will succeed in effectively closing the fake stores.
