Apple Opens Basel Store With Edinburgh Teaser

Apple opens a fourth Store in Switzerland at 47 Freie Strasse Basel, a famous shopping street replete with high-end stores and restaurants. 

Apple Store BaselThe other 3 Swiss Apple Stores are in Geneva, Zurich and Wallisellen. 

The new Basel outlet fills 3 floors across 900 square metros, and features the new interior visual design replacing the signature white-background product shots with colourful visuals pulled from the most recent Apple TV and online ad campaigns. 

According to the reaction on Twitter the new store attracted an enthusiastic crowd, and attendees got commemorative shirts in celebration. 

Interestingly Apple used the Basel store opening to tease the debut of another European store-- one in Edinburgh's historic Princes Street. Apple only says the new store is "coming soon," but rumors suggest the grand opening takes place on either 26 July or 2 August. 

Apple Store EdinburghIn other European Apple Store news the European Court of Justice declared the company's retail outlets are distinctive enough to be trademarked in Europe, just as they already are in the US. 

“A representation that, such as the one in the present case, depicts the layout of a retail store by means of an integral collection of lines, curves and shapes, may constitute a trademark provided that it is capable of distinguishing the goods or services of one undertaking from those of other undertakings,” the ECJ ruling says. 

All that Apple needs to do now is to actually apply for the trademark, and prove that the design “departs significantly from the norm or customs of the economic sector concerned”

The ruling overturns the 2013 German patents office decision that store layouts cannot be trademarked.

Go Apple Store Basel

Go Apple Store ECJ Ruling