Apple has been granted a service mark in the U.S. for the design and layout of its retail store, reflecting the company’s interest to protect the design of its popular stores from copycat retailers.

Ribeiro brings up China copycat retailers, which aren’t going to be affected by this – this is a U.S. trademark, after all. But China isn’t the only place where Apple’s store design gets imitated – one of the authorized Apple resellers in my area copies the Apple Store pretty closely, right down to colored t-shirts for their employees.