It costs around 20-30 RMB in super market (so the Taobao price is jacked up) Ok, somebody in already bought and reviewed the pen and there is a summary for the review.ġ. The problem, of course, is that technology has made the 'target market' thing kind of irrelevant.Īs for the pen, I am curious to see how it stacks up against the real thing once it makes it's way into the hands of FPN members. On the plus side, most of these offenders do not market outside of China and some Eastern European countries, so it could be argued that they are targeting a different market. LAMY would be wasting time and money by going after Hero, even if their patents were still active.

Apple products are blatantly copied (look up 'ChinaPad' on google) and as sue-happy as Apple is against other tech companies, they have done nothing to challenge a single Chinese company. Microsoft went up against a Chinese company a few years ago for some $30 million in damages. If anyone even takes you seriously enough to respond, the punishments for infringing copyright are barely a slap on the wrist. Blatant copying is common within China, and no one really sees it as a reprehensible act.Īlthough there are copyright laws in China, anyone trying to pursue a copyright case there is up against a lot of challenges.

In fact, if you are someone worth copying, you should feel flattered. In order to become smarter, they must copy other, greater people. In China, school children are taught that they have no good, original ideas. Failing to credit a source in a professional setting can ruin a career. In The West, we are encouraged (in school) to think for ourselves, write opinion papers, analyze events, and it is pounded into us to always give credit for our work. So I suppose business ethics was never an issue for them. If I am not mistaken, Hero became a well-known brand in China simply by copying Parker (they have a rosier name for that though, something like 'Reaching the foreign standard with local resources/worker'), and they have been doing it since the 1950s -1960s (before Parker ceased the production of 51).

Clone hero tell me why penpals