Protecting your hardware IP in China: Practical experience

This is why we have our own SMT assembly machine. The board with our "secret sauce" is made in our own building in California and we load our firmware in it here. We only get the Chinese to build it to the low tech part and they get a dummy board to allow them to test that part of it. A dummy board that merely bypasses the functionality. Yes, this costs us more but we have never had a knockoff since we started making it this way, allowing us to avoid a race to the bottom and to maintain margins. We make more money overall.

It is a pipedream that any human invention can be protected by patents for very long. Whatever one human invents, he is depending on the ideas and environment of the problem so that he depends on the ideas of many others who may have only dropped a comment while he was thinking. Even Einstein admitted that most of the thinking that preceded General Relativity was done by many of his contemporaries including his cousin Emmy in numberous letters. He merely put the pieces together. Chinese discovered the wheelbarrow, iron weapons and tools, and pasta. Lots of other things that we in the west have copied (stolen?) So Wake Up! Keep ahead, and see what improvements our competitors have made, and then steal them! The Chinese believe only a fool would reinvent the wheel (when they can copy it, and save lots of time and money, and that allows them to lower the price) Standard business practice (everywhere!)

Folks, we need to remember a few things: 1. The Chinese are NOT our friends 2. They regard us as subhuman fools, with contempt 3. Our own greed is doing this to us. 4. And, most importantly, their business bible is Sun Tsu's "Art of War". This is NOT a joke. We are the enemy, to be tricked, and subdued. Don't be too shocked if, at some point in the near future, the Chinese nationalize all foreign companies and cancel all investment and call in all debt.

Some idea's 1)Never let them do the entire job - save some part of the work for in house (like flashing the product and final assembly & tune) 2)Use protection device - several company produce this tiny device who can protect your IP 3)Use silicone when ever you can -I know it is a costly idea but useful Yuval - Israel

(We) Americans are enthralled with our legal system when it comes to dealing with competition. Since we cannot beat them in the manufacturing battlefield we have to turn to the courts. We have beaten our selves with our onerous environmental laws and full time government officials. ?Common sense? has left the depot and we are concerned about stupid issues ?carbon credits, football stadiums (pick your favorite entitlement?)? Folks we are beating ourselves? but then again ?the government knows best right????

"We need to tell the Chinese (and the others) that we will consider the next incidence of product knockoff an act of war." Just like we once told them that banning our heroin would be an act of war. Thought monopoly is being taken to ridiculous extremes. What exactly does the Lantronix XPort patent cover? Every tiny webserver? What is interesting is that the wealth of knock-offs in China's domestic market is helping the country grow. Firms can start up and buy equipment at a fraction of the capital that a Western firm would have to expend. It makes their economy much more efficient. They also benefit when domestic firms "steal" Western IP (like the holy tiny webserver) and then innovate and improve. China ends up able to have and use much better (not just cheaper) tiny webservers than the Western world.

Rocky told:"We need to tell the Chinese (and the others) that we will consider the next incidence of product knockoff an act of war. We've let them get away with way too much: poisoning our children, poisonous drywall, and on and on...." well, who wanted cheap products, make big profit?, basically that is the price of the greed, and be happy, because that is just the begin, now they just copying it, but soon they will learn to improve it, that will be fun....and don't forget they keep us in their pocket we owe them much!

We need to tell the Chinese (and the others) that we will consider the next incidence of product knockoff an act of war. We've let them get away with way too much: poisoning our children, poisonous drywall, and on and on....

Ha, Ha, Ha!!! Couldn't be happier. I hope it hurts their bottom line like they've hurt American engineering. They very well deserve it for offshoring our jobs and dealing with the devil.

Our experience is bad in all of Asia not just China. As I was told at the onset, "It's the culture, stupid." They are expert at reverse engineering software and replicating, hardware at least in appearance, if not quality and performance. The silicon solution is a good idea particularly if a little 'razzle' is included.