Apple Might Finally Start Selling iPhones In China Again

Apple and China haven’t really been seeing eye-to-eye over the last few years, with the second largest consumer market having its own ideas of what the American company should be sharing that the latter just did not like. This resulted in the iPhone maker being unable to sell its flagship units in the Asian nation for a while. It seems Apple finally got past that blockade in a Chinese court where the ban was overturned.

The iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus have been absent from the Chinese consumer market for some time now after the government decided to ban its sales after a company filed a complaint accusing Apple of infringing on certain design patents. As a result, the Beijing Intellectual Property Office ordered all sales of the iPhone units stopped, Ubergizmo reports.

In response, Apple filed a lawsuit with its local partner Zoomflight adding pressure. After a long and hard-fought battle in the Beijing Intellectual Property Court, the American company claimed victory. The court declared that there was no patent infringement. In addition, the court also pronounced that the regulators did not follow proper procedure when it called for the ban.

To be clear, this decision doesn’t mean that Apple can start selling its iPhone 6 and 6 Plus units right away. It just means that the Beijing Intellectual Property Office and Shenzhen Baili will now be able to take a look at this case again and decide if the company will be allowed back in the Chinese market.

Being allowed to finally start selling the iPhone units in China should go a long way towards offsetting some of the damages that Apple’s shares have sustained following the ban as well, Tech Crunch notes. What really makes this case interesting is the fact that an American company actually won in a Chinese court while going against a Chinese company.