Most companies producing “clones” or “replicas”, especially in China were originally approached by Brand names to see if they can be potential manufacturing bases. Instead of being paid, they negotiate to get rights to the original the design (albeit without propriety features).

It is no surprise that some have purposely produced inferior products so that the Brand name doesn’t take them on and they can just function on their own. Nokia, Apple, ASUS, Lego to name a few have been “replicated” by Chinese companies but then again - Where are the genuine ones made? When an Apple iPod “clone” was released to the market a Techno mag editor sent countless messages to Apple to see what they thought of the issue. They wouldn’t answer his call.

Most Brand names won’t take action unless (as stated above) propriety features have been copied or the name is almost the same. A lot of companies are afraid that if they were to take any action they would suffer a serious backlash from any potential future manufacturing bases in China.