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They didn't target China at all. They were resigned to the fact that it would be immediately cloned in that market so they never bothered.

The details are readily available in the linked thread but the gist of it is that most of the world operates on a "first to use" basis to prove trademark ownership while China uses a "first to file" basis.

Apple is tacitly saying that the Chinese system takes precedence. Even in the US. It's absurd.

Right in the reddit post, he writes they were marketing it as 点击英雄 in 2014 on a Chinese website. It does look like they were targeting China. There is nothing on that post to indicate otherwise. It does not sound like they were resigned to the fact that it would be immediately cloned. If I am missing something, let me know. I'm going based off of what I read in the Reddit post.

"not targeting China at all" may be overstating things, but "going so heavy into China" sounds like an exaggeration too.

You can be resigned to the fact that your app will be immediately cloned, and yet still think it worthwhile to spend a bit of money on having it localized enough that Chinese customers might find it compelling. I hear there are a lot of people in China. If you can have the job done cost-effectively, no reason not to try to capture at least some of the market. If people will buy clones, maybe they'll buy the original too.

Oh come on, make a quick buck and then take the moral high ground to deal with your ignorance on IP laws when your predicted inevitable outcome happens? :) That's way disingenuous. It makes much more sense for them to have thought IP laws there worked like IP laws at home. In fact, they do in effect say that they thought that in the Reddit post.

Your assumption is the same as mine: they didn’t think China’s IP rules worked differently.

I don't know if simply translating your game to another language is "targeting" that market.

Why would one translate it other than to sell in that market?

There are tens (perhaps hundreds?) of millions of Chinese speakers outside China.

Are you suggesting that they had it translated specifically for that segment of the Chinese-language market, while explicitly deciding to stay away from China itself? That seems to be empirically false. The failure to seek trademark protection in China is not evidence for that intent, as it was apparently a result of a mistaken assumption.

They support almost 15 languages. I seriously doubt they are "targeting" all of those markets, it's more likely some fans of the game contributed translations.

That might be so for some languages, but with regard to China specifically (which is the issue here), they say "We can re-name it in China, yeah. With a ton of effort changing all of the artwork we created with the old name." It looks like targeting to me.

I think you missed this.

>The purpose of trademarks is to have exclusive rights to a name, which is expensive to get worldwide and we don't really care about that - I have learned to fully expect China to copy all our shit and do what they want with our stuff.

>But they should NOT be allowed to force Apple to take down our stuff by abusing their trademark, and I really wish Apple could see what they were doing this because it's plain as day if you look at the evidence I provided.

They obviously had no illusions about the Chinese market.

At any rate, it's a red herring. They don't care that their IP has been stolen in China. They care that it has been stolen internationally (including the countries they did properly register in).

I don't think that you can fairly say anyone is "playing the victim" here. It just sounds like you're being cruel for the sake of it. After having had many years of work stolen right from under you, you'd be pissed too.

Quotes from https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/bs6n3l/apple_remov...

It seems to me that they targeted China, just didn't understand trademarks work there.

You don't really need to research Chinese IP law, as they're signed up to the WIPO Madrid system for international trademark filing.

https://www.wipo.int/madrid/en/

But instead of blaming the dev for missing a filing in China, why the hell is Apple taking down the app worldwide if it only violates IP law in China.

How quickly would a foreign application for IP project get through a Chinese court? Would it matter in the end if it did?

According to this page I googled, about 9 - 12 months from filing. And not via a court.

https://www.ip-coster.com/IPGuides/trademark-china

>Why does the naive entrepreneur get to play the victim here?

Now I dunno, this might be a bit of a stretch, but it might perhaps just be because they are in actual fact, quite clearly, the victim here.

The app was taken down worldwide, not in Rome.

Well, also in Rome :P

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_in_Rome,_do_as_the_Romans...

I know the term, I was just extending your use of it.

I never liked that phrase. Which Romans in particular? Rome was complicated as hell and regularly ruled by unpredictable incestuous madmen.

I'd rather not do as the Romans do, whilst in Rome, lest they mistake me for a Roman and I end up dead in some strange political intrigue, possibly featuring a drunken goat.

Yeah but if you act differently you might end up entertainment...

But we're not in Rome. We're on earth. So the saying goes: "When on earth do as the Chinese do".