Asymco's Horace Dediu and Dirk Schmidt, quoting Clayton Christensen: "The company has been slowly rolling its stores out across the world for [close to 50] years; and yet nobody has copied IKEA."
It's just a throwaway line in an excellent comparison of Apple and Ikea's retail operations, but does anyone remember Stor? From the NYT:
In April IKEA sued STOR, asserting that STOR copied some of IKEA's catalogue pages and its store design.
"The lawsuit is not about copying the concept – the similarity of the furniture is not an issue – but about infringing the copyright of the catalogue and copying the visual appearance of the store's setup and display, to the extent that the person familiar with IKEA thinks that STOR is IKEA," said Alan Zelnick, IKEA's lawyer.
IKEA also sought an injunction to prevent STOR from distributing its 1988 catalogue.
And the outcome, from Wikipedia:
STØR Furnishings International Inc. was an American furniture chain based in City of Industry, CA, that opened in 1987. It sold European-style furniture and ready-to-assemble furnishings. … IKEA filed a lawsuit against the company shortly after opening, claiming copyright infringement, and was settled in 1988 with STØR being forced to change the layout of their stores and advertising. STØR was acquired by IKEA in 1992.
