Imported Knock-offs
Ultimate HDF Member
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 7,101
Likes: 1,013
The Chinese are going crazy with knockoffs.
They even make a car that looks like a Rolls Royce!
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009...ype=blogs&_r=0
They do hummers, Ford F150's, Ferrari's and just about every popular car made.
http://jalopnik.com/5943850/the-ten-...-car-knockoffs
They even make a car that looks like a Rolls Royce!
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009...ype=blogs&_r=0
They do hummers, Ford F150's, Ferrari's and just about every popular car made.
http://jalopnik.com/5943850/the-ten-...-car-knockoffs
Road Master
Joined: May 2009
Posts: 992
Likes: 2
From: TN
No patent protection, so in a free market , competition rules. Quality will always prevail. But as you say...the consumer has the choice.
Seasoned HDF Member
Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 15,363
Likes: 24,235
From: NC, USA
I was common on Okinawa Japan for servicemen to buy knock off Rolex watches. Although they didn't look bad from a distance all you had to do was look at the second hand as it ticked instead of swept and the gig was up.
The Chinese got a piece of the tail rotor that was left behind on the Bin Laden raid as well as the Russians. The Iranians got one of our Intel stealth drones that was shot down in there air space as well. Once anything worth copying goes abroad it's reverse engineered and a cheap copy is mass produced and Americans too concerned with price over quality suck it up.
The Chinese got a piece of the tail rotor that was left behind on the Bin Laden raid as well as the Russians. The Iranians got one of our Intel stealth drones that was shot down in there air space as well. Once anything worth copying goes abroad it's reverse engineered and a cheap copy is mass produced and Americans too concerned with price over quality suck it up.
Road Captain
Joined: Jun 2012
Posts: 516
Likes: 1
From: Damascus MD
I'm in the hunting industry. We manufacture both in the US and overseas. For the last 4 years we only manufacture in the US. Patents and Trademarks are not protected overseas so its game on if they see an opportunity. The bad guys overseas have access to commercial design and production factories, they get lots of left over materials to utilize, etc. And I hate to say it, but being honest, the quality is as good or better overseas. But the real kicker is you can get large quantities of product for 1/3 of the price in half the time. We have been through the whole "buy US", but after 10 years of doing this first hand, that's all just talk, people do care if its made in the US, but they end up buying what's marketed better or what TV people are hyping, and just seem to look the other way on where it was made. I can say the quality of knock off stuff is usually just as good from what I've seen, they just cut out all the big profit middle men which is why knock products "appear" to be so much cheaper.
Just about all our products have been knocked off either by foreign companies or by Harley themselves. Nobody has copied our reverse yet, I guess they can't figure that one out. The good thing is over seas they can't get the good quality raw materials so most of what they knock off fails miserably. Sun glasses are pretty harmless when they fail, but when your transmission locks up at 70 mph hang on to your a**.
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Seasoned HDF Member
Joined: Aug 2013
Posts: 6,083
Likes: 1,959
From: Somewhere on the Bourbon trail
Originally Posted by jefla
I am interested in examples where a product was invented/created/designed by someone or some company in the US, only to have a foreign producer copy the design and manufacturer and sell the knock-off in the US.
