So apple has confirmed it plans to shutdown retail stores in Eastern district of texas, according to apple’s news site the closure of the stores was to allow the company to better protect itself from patent infringement lawsuits
The company will shut down its Apple Willow Bend store in Plano, Texas as well as its Apple Stonebriar store in Frisco, Texas, These stores will permanently close up shop on Friday, April 12. Customers in the region will instead be served by a new Apple store located at the Galleria Dallas Shopping Mall, which is expected to open April 13(wow…sorry texas for your loss). It was reported that the Eastern district of texas has become a popular place for patent trolls to file their lawsuits, though a more recent Supreme Court ruling has attempted to crack down on the practice. The court ruled that patent holders could no longer choose where to file.
Apple has fallen victim to lots of this patent troll in recent years causing the company to give huge payouts, : $625.6 million to patent holding firm VirnetX in 2016 over protocol patents; VirnetX won $368 million from Apple in 2013; and more recently$502.6 million over four communication patents.
Apple today employs 1,000 people in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, which has been an increase of 33 percent in the past five years.
The company also recently invested almost $30 million in its Dallas area stores.
Outside the Dallas metro area, Apple is also investing in Texas with its $1 billion for the new campus in Austin, which will accommodate an additional 5,000 employees on top of the 6,200 already in the area( wow..that quite a lot).
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