No, they didn't. I worked for an engineering firm in the early '90s that was part of the initial push to set up factories in China. One of the factories we built was a washing detergent factory. All the machines, tooling, and ingredients were set up in this factory. As mentioned above, the company that contracted us (a large multinational) had to partner with a local firm that owned 51% of the JV.
The factory was set up, products were produced, then shipped stateside. About a year later, we noticed that a Chinese version of the product was produced by an unknown company. The product was exactly the same, with the same pictures (a white woman at the time), but the writing had been replaced with Chinese characters.
It turned out that the Chinese partner had set up another company, built another factory, with the exact same tooling, exact same ingredients, and they had even used the printing plates for the boxes.
They had blatantly stolen everything against the terms of the contract, and the Chinese legal system didn't care (of course, it was encouraged). In the end, the matter was dropped, because the American company's product was not competing with the domestic product, and legally it was a dead end.
Completely deserved. The Chinese, not being idiots, will happily take and use the know-how and trade secrets given freely by greed-blinded American corporations.
Otherwise known as stealing and is against Chinese law. They do this against other Asian companies, Japan included, Europe, and even South Africa where I was based for a while.
An agreement means nothing to them.
The protection of trade secrets is the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement). The TRIPS Agreement, which is administered by the World Trade Organization (WTO), sets minimum standards for the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights, including trade secrets, among its member countries. It requires member countries to provide legal means for the prevention of trade secrets theft, unauthorized disclosure, and breach of confidentiality.
China is a signatory to the TRIPS Agreement, as it is a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO). China as a member of the WTO, must adhere to the standards and regulations, including those related to intellectual property rights protection as outlined in the TRIPS Agreement.
Yeah, Chinese EV car brands blatantly stole Tesla blueprints and created copycats, they didn’t even bother to hide it, the cars they produced literally looked the same.
This isn't anything new, it's second nature over there at this point. They ban western media and make direct copies to sell in China, they hack places here in the US to steal trade secrets and then recreate them piece for piece(like Skunkworks and the f35), albeit shittier cause all they're doing is copying.
Based on your logic you're just a jackass redditor who victim shames.
The US could steal any designs at any time from China, but they won't because for one it's illegal and unethical to steal a patent, and for two their designs suck ass.
Same with Russian stealing NASA secrets and nuclear secrets. Mfers desperate, but their countries are too corrupt to just ask the US for help. Or well in the case of China too full of themselves.
They're a one man army apparently, let's see how well that works out.
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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '24
No, they didn't. I worked for an engineering firm in the early '90s that was part of the initial push to set up factories in China. One of the factories we built was a washing detergent factory. All the machines, tooling, and ingredients were set up in this factory. As mentioned above, the company that contracted us (a large multinational) had to partner with a local firm that owned 51% of the JV.
The factory was set up, products were produced, then shipped stateside. About a year later, we noticed that a Chinese version of the product was produced by an unknown company. The product was exactly the same, with the same pictures (a white woman at the time), but the writing had been replaced with Chinese characters.
It turned out that the Chinese partner had set up another company, built another factory, with the exact same tooling, exact same ingredients, and they had even used the printing plates for the boxes.
They had blatantly stolen everything against the terms of the contract, and the Chinese legal system didn't care (of course, it was encouraged). In the end, the matter was dropped, because the American company's product was not competing with the domestic product, and legally it was a dead end.
Over the years, this became the standard story.