I recently came to a tangential realization (obviously I'm not the first to notice) regarding "cheap Chinese knockoffs":
The US company outsources the manufacturing to China because "they have to" (I don't necessarily agree with that), Chinese company keeps the assembly line running a few extra hours and resells the units back in the US under a slightly different name.
This equation is so comical to me:
The greed-driven US company screams that it's "fake", yet they didn't do anything illegal by outsourcing, just put Americans out of jobs. But if they don't build in China, a competitor will.
The Chinese company is driven by the same "profit over everything" motive and doesn't infringe on the US companys trade mark, but competes with the US company with essentially an identical product minus the R&D costs.
US company cries foul, "they're stealing our trade secrets!" Creates FUD about China but has no legal standing to do anything about it. Reeks of the same "immoral but completely legal" argument the former/would-be employees make
The US company outsources the manufacturing to China because "they have to" (I don't necessarily agree with that), Chinese company keeps the assembly line running a few extra hours and resells the units back in the US under a slightly different name.
This equation is so comical to me:
The greed-driven US company screams that it's "fake", yet they didn't do anything illegal by outsourcing, just put Americans out of jobs. But if they don't build in China, a competitor will.
The Chinese company is driven by the same "profit over everything" motive and doesn't infringe on the US companys trade mark, but competes with the US company with essentially an identical product minus the R&D costs.
US company cries foul, "they're stealing our trade secrets!" Creates FUD about China but has no legal standing to do anything about it. Reeks of the same "immoral but completely legal" argument the former/would-be employees make