Apple threatens UK market exit if court orders 'unacceptable' patent fees
appleinsider.com
appleinsider.com
Just because it's targeting Apple doesn't make it right. Companies of this type should be illegal. A patent is a government-sponsored monopoly which shouldn't be "pooled" by "patent companies" whose only purpose is to use the state to extract money from companies actually producing goods.
All people holding patents need to be innovating with them, or otherwise, lose them after a short period.
But I'm afraid Apple will not fight for the reform of the patent system, but will just try to protect itself. In which case I don't care about the outcome, since Apple also uses the same patent trolling tactics elsewhere to suppress its competition, e.g. litigations against Samsung in Germany, to name one such case.
Note that this is about Apple's ability to sell an iPhone in the UK, and as far as I can see, it wouldnt affect whether the entire company would remain in the UK.
If I were apple, I would withdraw a product from a country which supported this kind of racketeering.
I had no idea it was that low. I would have thought it would be from 10 to 14. To put it in perspective, Apple sells 4 times that many in China. With China and the US being their bread and butter. Also, their marketshare in China and the US has way more upside. (Room for growth.)
I can understand now. You definitely don't want to pay money to stay in a market that has less upside than your money makers. That would mean you're using money from your money makers to fund customers who are not your money makers. From a much smaller businessman's perspective, I'd file that under, "There are some customers out there that are too much trouble."
Lol. If this is "racketeering" then Apple will have to withdraw from literally every Western developed nation.
This case only didn't happen in the US because the court didn't find the patent to be valid, by a thin margin.
They haven't paid them yet. And if they leave the market, they have no reason to pay it.
The smart move for the patent troll is to target some of these smaller companies and write license agreements in the form of "I agree to pay $20 per device sold to license this patent". $20 is nothing to a company selling Ships, Oil rigs, tunnel boring machines, etc.
Then when it comes to apple, paying $20 per iphone is suddenly rather expensive, but the troll can show the court lots of licensees all agreeing to pay that rate, and it can then be established as a reasonable rate for this specific patent.
And who can forget Apple's patent troll operation, Rockstar consortium, that crashed and burned as it was taking off.
Devil's advocate:
If the original holder of a patent is a small fry, and does not have the resources to go after the big fish if they take advantage of the patent, shouldn't the original inventor have the right to sell the patent to get something, and then the new holder can use their potentially larger resources to get licensing compliance.
In the case the patent owner isn't doing any R&D or engaging in economically productive activity (at all; nor esp. related to the patent).
I think we need, even a very minimal, condition here:
The government is only going to shake-down your competitor if you're actually in the same market. If you're just a guy hold a slip of paper, sorry, the government isn't your muscle.
But by licensing the patent to interested parties, they might be supporting R&D of people who might not otherwise be doing R&D in this direction.
The ability to license some tech you know is likely to work in the form of a patent has some value.
I'd be inclined to say: sorry, licensing/selling to companies not in the market is now not possible.
If you need to mitigate risk, insurance companies (etc.) can offer products against patents -- they still have value, just only now to companies actually operating in the relevant market.
And of course, "relevant market" can be read broadly by judges.
Either way, patent law is running amok over innovation, and goverment shake downs and money transfers from producers to rentseekers is a net loss for everyone.
>If the original holder of a patent is a small fry, and does not have the resources to go after the big fish if they take advantage of the patent, shouldn't the original inventor have the right to sell the patent to get something, and then the new holder can use their potentially larger resources to get licensing compliance.
Hits the crux of the issue. A patent is economically/politically/socially worthless to the inventor themselves without the ability to spend inordinate amounts of legal muscle to tell people they can't use it, and the effective exercise by a patent holder of a patent renders the patent valueless to society for the duration, and creates many perverse incentives and business models for non-practicing entities.
In fact, at this point I'd argue the corpus of patents out there is nowadays less useful to the inventive than it is to the legal profession to keep themselves in work. The last time I read a patent to truly understand something was to figure out how a fire-alarm use casing went back together, and even then, that was of spotty levels of help.
For instance heirs. Inventor invents, dies while they would and should still have all rights, say it's the day after being awarded, patent is transferred.
Inventor recieves a patent, but later that asset or all their assets are seized by the government as part of a criminal process, or awarded to someone else as part of a legal action.
There's probably lots of odd situations I can't even imagine where a patent like any other preoperty or asset (or debt or liability or responsibility) is transferred, without it being a sale and without the recipient deserving to be penalized or put under any extra burden.
Even fully business transactions like a company buys an entire other company, rather than specifically a patent. I'm not sure in that case the assets should evaporate or lose their "first sale" extra value. Maybe they should, but also maybe it's just as fair to consider the new owner still the originator, since the originator is a company which still exists. Maybe it should be considered a transfer if the purchasing company closes the original company as a distinct entity and simply ingests the assets.
Maybe this is all pretty easily handled and it's no problem by just having some sort of legal metadata where the patent has a property flag that says if it's considered to be in a state of being before or after first sale, and any legal process that performs a transfer records whether this transfer constitutes a sale or not.
Another gotcha, it probably also means somehow identifying and disqualifying some "gifts" and allowing others.
Anyway I do like the idea.
It should be the burden of the court to prove that the patent was actively being used (by the holder) to produce a product and that the infringement directly hurt the potential target market of the product in question.
A non-practising patent holder is also more likely to licence the patent to lots of other entities compared to one that makes products. This is one of the concerns around NVidia's proposed takeover of ARM, a non-practising entity that creates and licences computer processor designs.
I looked at one of the patents from the Apple case, US6393286B1. Unlike the "small fry" scenarios described above, this was registered by Ericsson. I cannot tell whether the patent is actually inventive, but it seems likely that Ericsson themselves did create a product, as they were involved in creating the 3G standards in the 1990s and they also produced phones. The accusation here is that Apple also created a product based on the same technology, without paying the licensing fees. The current holder bought the rights to the patent in the secondary market. The effect on Apple is the same whether it is Ericsson or the current owner enforcing it.
What product did Apple make that specifically infringes on this patent?
(I have no idea as to whether this one is valid or not, I'm as against patent trolls suing people with bogus patents as anyone else)
Surely the patent IS the innovation, and a perfectly valid way to use that innovation is to license it to larger companies.
If they can't meet that condition, sell the patent to a company who can. They'll actually innovate with it (ie., use the licence feeds to fund something useful).
I hate patent trolls too, but if your two outcomes are A) all you'll get is a bunch of umbrella companies coupling a legal firm to a modest widget mill. This is a great way to proliferate e-trash though and B ) The leviathan in town sets up a window to buy out every patent they can to save no long term litigation costs... Maybe your system is flawed to begin with.
Tons of technology is used in fields other than where it originated.
Probably a lawyer didn't legitimately invent an important new chemistry for a glue, but a baker could, or a landscaper, etc. And math and process/logistics can come from anyone anywhere at any time, even a lawyer.
This may be hard to define and be correct and fair about it.
Then again... in that case they'd be the originator which could be a special status vs purchased as an asset. Maybe not so hard to manage after all.
Something very important to note here is that the comment was made in regard to a case arguing whether or not Apple agree to be legal bound by another case next year to decide the patent license fee. Apple are arguing that they'll leave the market if the fee is too high. The reality is actually that if they agree to a binding agreement in the current case, and then decide the fee is too high after the case next year and refuse to pay it, they'll be banned from selling iPhones in the UK. Their exit from the market won't be their choice.
This remark is a scare tactic aimed at making the court agree a lower patent fee. No one believes that Apple will voluntarily leave the UK market, but if the court imposes a high fee Apple might be forced to. It's highly improbable, but it's not entirely impossible.
If the fee is 20x on their profits from iphones, personally, I'd leave -- for a few years at least. The opportunity cost is very high: leave for 2+ years and prompt the UK gov to act. Then return.
Also, my issue is exactly with "validity" conditions. Regardless of what they are, my view is we need a change in the law to make cases of this kind non-starters.
My initial stab is this: patents have to held by companies operating in the relevant market to be valid. The ensures licensing fees go towards companies capable of innovation, and limits patent trolling.
I'd prefer, even, to add: those companies are using those patents; or otherwise, have +10 years from their last use in a product (etc.).
However, one step at a time.
And loose the customers base who would otherwise be locked into iOS/Apple ecosystem? It’s not just profits from iPhones they would be loosing.
Trade in used devices would be brisk, fed in part by what is brought in.
Then, Apple begins running ads for sympathetic members of parliament, with astonishing levels of cash.
would be easy enough for the patent owner to obtain an injunction preventing new devices being used on major cellular operators
The government doesn't care about apple users. They don't care about any citizens. And anyway, the apple users can always buy their devices in the EU.
I'm having trouble seeing why this sequence:
Court: pay $X fee or stop selling iPhones.
Apple: OK, we'll stop selling iPhones.
While the mythical "homo econominus" may say that there's no difference between "give me $$$ or I'll inflict severe negative utility on you" and "give me $$$ or I'll reduce the positive utility you receive from selling goods by the same amount" by saying it's the same amount of utility in absolute terms in both branches, in practice nobody feels or operates that way, and that's with steelmanning this argument by declining to note all the obviously relevant ways in which this metaphor is a mismatch.
Court: Pay $x fee
Apple: No
Court: Your punishment is that you're no longer to allowed to sell iPhones
The court is providing circumstances. Apple responds to circumstances. But the only way they can respond is by determining what they want to do, and then trying to do it.
Note also that in your framing, unless you believe the court would respond to Apple attempting to pay the fee by saying "no, you had your chance, it's gone now, get out of the market", it's still Apple choosing not to sell iPhones.
I don't know the British system well enough to understand what reaction public opinion would have on members of parliament, but some censure of the judge and reversal of the patent decision could happen.
Or they might do nothing, because Apple isn’t a British company and they want to help Amstrad take over its market share.
In the UK all power is held by parliament and extends from parliament.
• https://www.judiciary.uk/about-the-judiciary/the-judiciary-t...
• https://www.judiciary.uk/announcements/swearing-in-of-the-ne...
Parliament legislates as the Crown in Parliament - hence the mace must be present in the chambers while Parliament is sitting and all bills must receive royal assent to become Acts of Parliament.
There also exist powers that are (currently) outwith Parliament - namely the royal prerogatives.
The court system is similar, courts derive their power from the Crown, although, of course, they are subject to statute passed by Parliament.
While judges in the UK have life tenure and aren't allowed to stand for parliament, judges are constitutionally subordnate to parliament - they can't challenge the validity of acts of parliament.
And separation of executive and legislature is essentially nonexistent: Getting the support of a majority in parliament makes you the prime minister - and the first-past-the-post system makes it very common that a single party will control a majority of the seats.
[1] https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06...
The executive is staffed by members of the lower house.
Until recently the head of the courts were from the upper house. So the lower house provided the executive, and the upper provided the courts.
Compared to constitutional systems like the US, the UK is basically still in the same position.
There is no "constitution" that the legal system forces parliament to adhere to. Our courts simply enforce acts and "send them back" to parliament only when there are inconsistencies.
I actually regard the creation of the supreme court here in the UK a pretty silly thing, it should've reminded with the upper house.
Either way, it isnt independent in the US sense.
Probably doesn't help that there isn't a single UK-wide legal system...
Edit: There are 3 or 4 legal systems in the UK depending on how you count them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_United_Kingdom#Thre...
If they displease the government, then they might not be chosen to head lucrative judicial inquiries - I think that's the only sanction that government can inflict on them.
Neither government nor parliament can "reverse" a patent decision.
Government and parliament have been known to "censure" (criticise) judicial decisions; usually that behaviour provokes a negative reaction among educated people and thoughtful newspapers. It doesn't happen often.
The government can also appeal against sentence in crimnal cases, if they think the sentence was unduly lenient. This is fairly recent statute legislation, and controversial.
This is wholly untrue. Parliament can do what it pleases, including disestablish the judiciary and the executive.
But it still can't dismiss a judge, because Parliament doesn't employ the judges.
As long as the patent is for some actual innovation, there is nothing wrong with this market structure, economically or morally.
Will it? Or will we have to wait for the patent period to expire of said technologies.
A research program that only produces patents for patent trolls seems like a useless research program.
I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment that you need to actively use the patent in a product or forfeit all protection.
The alternative: grant a patent but if it not used within some scope of time in some way it becomes public domain or otherwise no longer considered a person's intellectual property. So you go to some company and say "I've solved your problem and I want to license my solution to you" and they tell you either you're going to sell it to them cheap or they'll just wait you out. You either take it or lose the patent in short order and now they can use it free. Now the only people that even own intellectual property are the big guys, and if you don't sell they let you lay fallow until your ownership becomes forfeit. You either sell to them or lose the patent.
I hate patent trolls too, but this alternative is worse. I personally don't like intellectual property in general, I think the best solution is to just not have it. Trade secrets are one thing, making it illegal for someone to reverse engineer something they bought or draw pictures they saw elsewhere in public is a bit absurd.
Take James Watt for example, Matthew Boulton could just have told Watt to take a hike and started manufacturing improved steam engines by himself. Watt couldn't have afforded to make steam engines independently, and why would any investor bother supporting him with capital if they could just set up production without him too?
The problem is with trivial patents, not patents in general.
Watts held back progress significantly and steam engine development was hampered by his and others patents until the expired. The steam engine would have been built to pump water out of mines whether patents existed or not.
You have transformed a structure where one entities invents and produces to a market structure with one where those are separate roles.
You like the former and abhor the later. But from the outside, this change is absolutely meaningless. It's no different than any other make-or-buy decision.
(Note that "sells a license" is exactly the same as "patent trolling".)
All these feelings you people have are based on the idea of "superficial" patents that aren't "real innovation". Which is, indeed, a problem. But it has nothing to do with the above. Assume some actually useful patent, and these objections fall apart.
Why? Ideas are cheap, execution is everything and all that. You don't have to literally be the person executing on it, but whoever you transfer or sell the patent to should. I'd be ok with licensing or selling patents to others to build the technology, I'm not ok with licensing or selling the patent to others who will only use it to sue people who do try to build something similar.
The concept of patents was to encourage innovation, not stifle it.
Its also quite common that multiple people invent the same thing at roughly the same time. With these patent trolls, if one of these people gets the invention patented first, but does nothing but rent seeking with it, that will prevent others who came up with the same thing but were too slow to patent it to even try.
Couple that with overly broad, vague or downright invalid patents and you end up with a system that discourages, hinders or puts a large cost on actual innovation. Even if a patent is provably invalid, it costs money in legal fees to get it overturned.
Without the ability to sue people infringing on your patent, how do you ensure people will pay to license it?
Let's say you have a patent. You're trying to get someone to license it. They decide, no, we'd rather just use it for free instead. Now you have no buyers, and no licensors -- what is your option but a lawsuit?
But honestly, I'd be happier to just abolish patents altogether.
Whose non-existant patent would they buy under the new system where the non-practitioner can't have one to sell? Or I can see you could only let practitioners enforce, but what would be the details on that? The non-practioner could just threaten to become a practitioner or sell to one in exchange for a settlement from someone violating, or if prior violators were grandfathered in once practitioning from the holder began, it would be a race to violate as many as possible before they could be put into practice, in order to get them free through grandfathering.
They do that sometimes. Other times they discover a drug chemistry, patent it, and then do nothing with it because they decide the market isn't profitable enough. That stops other companies bringing the same drug chemistry to the market. Patent trolls actively want people to exploit their patents in order to sue. I'm not sure which is more disagreeable.
Disagree, fully, 100%. To believe this you have to first buy into the idea that the patent system is a good one and/or that people who are doing none of the actual work should be able to rent-seek the people who actually are. If you aren't using the patent you should not be allowed to force other companies to pay you for it, that's just a stupid system (even if it's the system we currently have). I don't care if it's Apple, Google, Facebook, Oracle, or an indie developer, none of them should have to put up with BS patents like this.
Companies like ARM would not be able to exist under the system you propose. Their whole business model is creating patents and licensing them to others instead of using the patents themselves.
Preventing companies like ARM from licensing their patents would only benefit incumbents like Intel who can afford the massive amounts of investment required to turn those patents into chips.
All that said: so what? My ideal world wouldn’t have patents at all. They cause way more harm than good. And we’ve seen time and time again that the big companies will just straight up copy or buy up any competition, the system is broken.
When I worked at ARM, we just used FPGAs to emulate the chips and waited for the customers to give us a board with the actual chips. Maybe another division did create their own hardware, but everything we worked with for testing in ours was from customers.
> there is a big difference between the generic/basic patents we’ve seen trolls use over and over again (stuff like “an input device causes and output device to do something”)
If it is a generic/basic patent, why should it make a difference whether the enforcer is a practising entity (PE) or not? Unlike a non-practising entity (NPE), a PE would be less inclined to licence it because they want to keep competitors out. ARM is big enough that they can instigate litigation on their own against infringers. Smaller inventors have no chance of doing that, and patent trolls are often their only venue. Many times, the problem is with bogus patents that should never have been granted because of prior art or obviousness (supported by the authorities failing to perform due diligence before granting patents). And the other is the expense of defending against a valid patent that does not apply to the defendant's product. Patent trolls' portfolios are often full of such patents, but this is not limited to NPEs.
> big companies will just straight up copy or buy up any competition
An example that comes to my mind is Nuance, a practising entity that engaged in frivolous patent infringement lawsuits against a new competitor Vlingo. Nuance did turn their patents into products (Dragon NaturallySpeaking), so they are not considered a patent troll under the usual definition. Yet, their actions against Vlingo were the same as that of a troll, and even though Vlingo won, they were weakened enough to be bought out by Nuance.
A patent only last 15 or 20 years... copyright is a much bigger issue (copyright protection lasts for the life of the author plus an additional 70 years).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc._litigation#Trademar...
The solution is to stop registering stupid patents, and (this would require a massive effort) invalidate all the stupid patents that are already on file.
Or perhaps, change the law so that if an alleged infringer turns out to have "infringed" an invalid patent, all costs go to the alleged infringer. That would encourage people to fight patent trolls, rather than just roll over.
[Edit] I suppose that would only work if the petitioning NPE were required to deposit a bond with the court.
If some company decides to borrow those patents and Apple asks for money, who should set the price? Again, Apple?
>In 2020, the UK Supreme Court ruled a UK court can set the rate for patent payments worldwide, despite the court only being able to consider the infringement of UK patents. A trial in 2022 will determine how much Apple will have to pay.
From my limited reading I think and correct me if I am wrong that is why the numbers it so large at $7B. It is basically if a patent that is ruled valid in the UK, the company will have to pay the fees for it worldwide, i.e ~250M unit per year and all the past years of infringement. The only way to not have to pay would be to get out of the UK market so the company will have to have its patent on trial in court in every other country.
There is no way that $7B was made solely on the iPhone sold in UK. The numbers just dont add up.
>> I'm not sure that is right. Apple's position is it should indeed be able to reflect on the terms and decide whether commercially it is right to accept them or to leave the UK market. There may be terms that are set by the court which are just commercially unacceptable.
This is not a threat. But a valid argument, which is so rare from Apple. It is not the first time Apple has threaten to leave the market in numerous other occasions such Australia, Germany, or EU.
Flippant answer aside, we need governments to learn to stand up more against the superlarge multinational companies that think they can bully their way over what a countries government thinks is good for the population. (I know a whole bunch of hand waving - elected by the people for the people that doesn't always work).
We should applaud a government for standing up though.
Sounds like China
Don't get excited, it's just one Supreme Court justice, who has very little to lose either way. No one has even heard of these guys before. I don't believe that Johnson would have the backbone to do such a thing.
What's the point in attracting a business that doesn't pay any tax... further, I (and many others) would argue Apple has a far less positive impact on it's users than it used to, it has turned into more of a money extracting machine and vehicle for consumption.
In other words, if not having a quasi-monopoly operate in your country is a net positive for society, then who cares if they threaten to leave.
The UK should be better off.
Both sides are happy.
Such as the market for accessories creation and trading
All helps GDP and the local economy
and the immediately following politician will run on a jobs platform and invite the corporation back
I like being on the corporate side of the game right now
Assuming that their reported profit wasn't just a massive lie to avoid tax, obviously.
The judgement holder could then attempt to go after Apple in other countries, but I think that would result in a court case about whether that’s possible or not.
That said Apple postulating this as retaliation to a legal court case pertaining to a valid patent, does seem a bit purile.
But the real question I have is - if these are core patents as they seem to be (not read the patents but mention of 3g and 4g connectivity mooted) then I would of thought FRAND would take presedense
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminat...
So yes, the reported profit was just a massive lie.
“* In 2020, the UK Supreme Court ruled a UK court can set the rate for patent payments worldwide, despite the court only being able to consider the infringement of UK patents.*”
If every country took that approach that the UK Court seems to be taking, international trade would suffer greatly.
This isn't UK over-reach, but an application of international standard approach, afaict.
> I'm not sure that is right. Apple's position is it should indeed be able to reflect on the terms and decide whether commercially it is right to accept them or to leave the UK market. There may be terms that are set by the court which are just commercially unacceptable.
Perhaps that’s diplomatic lawyer-speak for “we’re leaving and taking our ball with us” (any lawyers please do comment), but as an outsider I don’t see it.
A company specialized in making money from patents can't be any good...
If the 2 patents are "good quality" - really novel, not a bit obvious to actual experts in that niche (at the time), etc. - then the reasonable (morally, not legally) argument would be about what is a fair rate for Apple to pay to use them.
If the 2 patents are "the usual patent system abuse crap" - vague walls of buzzwords, prior art but with "using $NameOfNewTechnology" inserted in a bunch of places, or such - then the reasonable argument (again morally) would be about why our wretched legal and patent systems are so badly infested with such toxic swill.
But Apple's seeming threat to exit the UK market makes for a lot of drama, and that's mostly what people care about.
Then anybody can implement it; there is no restriction
Then there is a preset scale, partly set by the value the inventor gives to the invention, but also set by supply and demand. So the inventor cannot price themselves out of the market, but still has incentive to publish. Possibly a market place where companies make non exclusive bids
Patent '''trolls''' are a separate issue
Probably the best solution is for litigants who loose; to pay a more realistic evaluation of damages for the court case to those who successfully defend themselves. This would include paying above damages, because presumably those who defended themselves should be paid for the extra work forced on them, etc
Alternatively for low to zero value patents, where a few years have elapsed, the onus first falls on the patent holder to demonstrate its worth
Alas, the money is too sweet and hard to say no to...
Alas, the lobby money is too sweet and hard to say no to...
Yes, please.
I find it difficult to believe, as a mobile developer myself, that 330,000 jobs are being supported by the App Store in any meaningful way.
Fermi estimate:
apps-not-abandoned * average-developers-per-app-this-year ~> 2 million apps * 2 developer-months ~> 333,000 developers
I know "meaningful" isn't well-defined, but more than 1% of the entire UK workforce is not dependent on the App Store (that couldn't be replaced by any other app marketplace)
A politician could be correct that 1+1=2, but Apple will twist your emotions until you cave.
Or at least that works on some people.
And I'm not really a fan of Apple either, but still.
Unfortunately with Brexit it has become fashionable in certain quarters to 'do-down' the UK's capabilities.
> with Brexit it has become fashionable in certain quarters to 'do-down' the UK's capabilities
It has also certainly become fashionable in other quarters to 'do-up' the UK's capabilities.
I don't deny that the UK has technological clout beyond digital, with excellent universities, a great tradition in science and engineering, and a global hub in London.
But a competitor to Apple? Come on.
The problem with building a mobile firm is that it's extremely expensive capital wise, and difficult.
There has not been an effective new entrant in the market globally in quite some time. It is not "doing the UK down" to suggest that there is no opportunity here for someone who doesn't already do high end phone manufacturing, and it's worth noting that the margins for everyone else in the mobile market are pretty crummy actually.
The high-end mobile phone market outside Apple is a shark-infested red ocean to start with. Then there's the fact that even if Apple stopped operating in the UK, you'd still have to compete with them globally.
I cannot foresee a Black Swan event like a random dude from the Midlands becoming the next Steve Jobs, but other than that I don't think it's worth entertaining that there will be a real British contender to the American trillion dollar mastodon.
I don't think a sudden Apple competitor is at all likely to appear either, but not from any country, nothing really significantly making it more or less likely from the USA or UK (or Germany or Canada or ...) IMO.
With the exception I suppose that perhaps it is more likely from China than anywhere, public perception really soured but you could imagine Huawei (or Xioami or whatever) phones could've gotten popular. (They can never seem to get fonts and branding 'right' though? I don't understand why they don't hire 'western' branding consultants, even dirt cheap students, just to get some feedback on the way things look. It wouldn't take much to be able to charge a lot more for the obviously identifiable tat on Amazon (and also all over AliExpress).)
They end up selling themselves and their ideas to the world who then go on to really capitalise on them.
Being generous, Britain is a design hub at best.
No.
Samsung, Huawei and Sony would fill it.
There is no UK company that has the scale to be able to deliver a competing product before those companies absorb all the available market share.
Made in China, obviously, but British labelling and marketing. They lasted a few years before bankruptcy.
I think if apple somehow did exit the UK the replacement would be (a) black market iphones and (b) all the other Android manufacturers.
But I'm not convinced that it would cause a new competitor to exist. I think it's more likely that existing companies will eat up that market instead, and I don't think there are any UK companies poised to take over that market segment.
Hell that same circumstance of personal use is how the underground USSR blue jeans market came about!
(Apple make €110bn profit in Ireland according to their accounts. There is no Dublin Apple Store.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Eu...