And Acer is Taiwanese.
And Lenovo is a Chinese company, but I guess they've made the cost-benefit analysis that they have more to lose getting sued by Apple in the US for copying their products than they have to gain by selling a cheap Macbook knockoff in an already very competitive Chinese market.
Taiwan has robust rule of law, unlike china.
Xiaomi is the new kid on the block and just copies Apple designs. Some examples:
http://www.iphonehacks.com/2014/07/xiaomi-copying-apple.html
Also they have no legitimate sales channel in the US/EU, so there's a jurisdiction issue with a lawsuit. Apple knows it can't just march into China and win a lawsuit. Acer and Lenovo sell in the US/EU, so they have to play ball with our IP laws.
The eeepc was the thing that proved there was enough interest for a low-power-but-mobile computer, which ended up turning into the tablet market. Crappy build quality, but people went berserk for them.
Really? Here's one [0] from approximately when the Air came out and looks not even remotely similar to me in shape.
[0] https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ASUS_Eee_PC_PIC_09...
And how!!! My ex-boss read the press announcement on a flight (sometime in 2011?) and went gung ho. On coming back, he got me to inquire with our regular/local hardware vendors. Turned out nobody (in our small city) had even heard of it, so the inquiry was escalated to the largest city of our state. Still nothing. Finally, he actually got a staffer to fly to Mumbai and get him a piece.
Within the next few weeks, he bought not less than 7 more, to gift them away to family and friends!! Yes, berserk is right. :-)
Xiaomi is a Chinese company they don't care since if they ever do get sued the Chinese court will always side with the Chinese company.
The again if the clone works just as well as the original I don't really care but this would have been a really good chance to copy and improve.