On Tuesday 08 June 2004 03:21 pm, Timothy H. Collins wrote:
>
> "One of our grads visited last week and reported that his company
> is in phase 2 of 3 in final outsourcing the manufacturing and
> engineering of the product they produce to China. On a visit to
> China, the new plant was progressing nicely and all was well.
> Then they saw that the parts their company was making were also
> already being produced by a small machine shop across the
> street. I KNOW that part is ours!!! They asked to visit the shop area
> and found prints they designed and full copies signed by the US
> engineers in the party. Apparently patent, copyright and
> intellectual property ownership is as meaningless on the pacific rim
> as the rights of music or video rights are on bootleg CD's or DVD's.
> So this is how they make "it" so much cheaper than we do??? "
This is very true. A colleague of mine was in China setting up a factory and
was able to buy a schematic and block diagram of a state of the art (one of
Nokia's newest phones) on the streets of Beijing. It contained enough
information to build a knock off Nokia. The total cost was less than 1 USD.
That coupled with the fact that you have very little control of your factory
it is one of the worst places to have things made. Check out the following
horror story:
http://www.som.yale.edu/faculty/pks4/files/international_readings/620_new_balance_wsj_021219.pdf
http://tinyurl.com/ytkaf
or
http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:QbQ4gSOoHz0J:www.som.yale.edu/faculty/pks4/files/international_readings/620_new_balance_wsj_021219.pdf+chinese+factory+sneakers+excess+production&hl=en
http://tinyurl.com/33o94
These URLS all point to the same story, original for the purist and tiny for
Just ED. Anyway if you want to keep your IP you must control your factories.
_______________________
Bill Gilroy
77 MG Midget
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