Apple Being Sued by Chinese Clothing Manufacturer Kon Over App Store Icon Design

BY Evan Selleck

Published 19 Dec 2017

Apple is no stranger to lawsuits, and now the company is being dragged into court in China over the icon of the App Store.

As first reported by Phone Radar, Apple is currently being sued over the design of the App Store icon, which was recently updated and is used on iOS devices, as well as macOS. Kon, for its part, was originally founded in 2009, and the garments were based on the Sex Pistols’s Anarchy In The UK. Kon’s logo, which you can see above, was meant to symbolize the skeleton bones that represent power over death.

The similarities between the two logos are pretty obvious at an initial glance. Each has three straight sticks, or lines, that intersect to form what looks like an “A.” In the case of Kon’s logo, the ends of the sticks or lines are straight and sharp. Apple’s App Store logo, meanwhile, has rounded edges. The separation between the two left sticks is different, too, with the Kon logo seeing the separation on the top, and the Apple App Store logo seeing the separation on the bottom.

Kon says that it owns the copyright to its logo in China, and it is currently taking Apple to court in search of damages — and a pubic apology.

As it stands right now, the Beijing People’s Court has accepted the case and it will be moving forward. The initial report suggests that it could see a ruling in as little as a few weeks.

What do you think? Should Apple publicly apologize (and pay damages) for copying Kon’s logo?

[via The Verge; Phone Radar]