Chinese patent theft?

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Just my basic understanding, but:

I take it you are a big believer in the UN and their desire for International Law, and you'd sue China in the International Court? Otherwise, if you don't apply for a patent in China (which they probably didn't), and you aren't granted one, there's no infringement. Aiui. Plus no-one really pretends that patents matter, when it comes to military technology, anyway. Court of law < barrel of gun. Heck, if you patent it then you're pretty much giving your secrets away.
 
I take it you are a big believer in the UN and their desire for International Law, and you'd sue China in the International Court?
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Sarcasm, my friend.

I was merely pointing out the fallacy of all the "Free Trade" nuts who think that "Free Trade" means giving the Chinese all of our technology (even in small arms). If our relationship with China was anything like true free trade, such a lawsuit would be concievable. As it stands, this country is getting sold out.
 
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I would not hold my breath waiting for the Chinese government to enforce any sort of patent or copyright even if it was valid in China. They knock-off everything in that country, and their state owned factories are notorious for making exact copies of brand name firearms, including Sigs, Colt Woodsman and .45's, Browning Hi-Powers, Uzis, and M-1A's. They were sued when the fake Uzi's were being imported, and the result was that no more could be brouht in.
 
Lets see, kids can't steal songs from the internet, but the Chinese can steal and copy our technical designs? Okay, just wanted to make sure everything is normal.:scrutiny:
 
To be fair, patents are not really in line with the thinking of a free-market economy. But, because people seem to agree that innovation is important enough to cut a little bit off the bottom lines, they exist as an accepted (and often appreciated) government infringement.

Of course now we know that any gov't economic intervention leads to more and more, but that's another discussion.

The main point is that even the gov't understood that you ought not be able to patent stuff forever and ever, just long enough to make profit to cove your expense of innovation, and then a bit more as incentive to innovate some more. Though patent lives do seem to grow longer each decade, the basic idea is that they're an incentive to innovation, because in a true free market the window of opportunity where one has a competitive advantage due to an innovative product might not be enough to cover the costs, before the competition copies the technique/technology and catches up.

To be patently honest :) the idea of a country enforcing internal laws in other countries is rather ethnocentric. In a laissez-fair situation if you couldn't get a patent in China, then the only thing to be expected in that China not try to sell copies of your invention in your country.

And in reality, even inside one's legal domain, their countrymen can easily rip them off too. If a moderately wealthy inventor comes up with something new a wealthier bandit can copy the idea, and then use their competitive advantage in economies of scale to generate more profit from the invention. This money they make is money that the originator does not make (for the most part) and the only recourse of the originator is legal action. If he does this then he takes away resources he desperately needs to compete with the bandit in the marketplace, and spends them on legal action (time and money). If the bandit can delay long enough, the originator will bleed to death and the bandit has no threat left to worry about.
(if they'd be really morbid they could buy the rights from the bankrupt innovator, and then make sure no-one does unto them what they do)
 
Glock successfully sued Smith and Wesson for patent infringement. Why is China immune?
 
Hmm, come to think of it you've got a point. Since China successfully got into the WTO that means they have to follow the rules entailed.

Still, Jeep executives were a little astonished to see Grand Cherokees without any badges rolling down the streets shortly after they opened a factory, but the opportunities are so vast that executives consciously look the other way so as not to ruin what is still a great deal.
 
To be fair, patents are not really in line with the thinking of a free-market economy.
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I'm afraid I must disagree here. A free market economy is impossible without a set of enforcable "rules of the game" as it were. Simple things like "don't burn down your competitor's factory" for starters, but I'd say that patent law easily falls within those boundaries. Heck, it was important enough for the founders to make provisions for in the Constitution.
 
The Chinese have been systematic, blatent, notorious patent infringers for decades.

One of the axioms that I heard in my college of business administration experience in the 80's was "You can sell one of anything to the Chinese."

Not a darned thing we can do about it, and if there were, we still wouldn't do it.
 
One of the funniest reviews of a firearm I've ever had a chance to read was for a Chinese clone of an Ithaca 37. The main negative on the weapon was that all of the parts, freshly blued, had the dimesions of a heavily-used, 10yo Ithaca. Reverse engineering is only smart if you've got a pristine sample. :neener:

And the Chinese regularly use our patent database for new ideas, they dont care if they cant sell it here if they can sell it to the rest of the world for a buck cheaper than the original inventor's product.

Kharn
 
Calico isn't the only company to have devised firearms fed from a helical magazine. The Russian-made Bizon submachineguns use a similar system.


Without knowing whether the internal operation of the actual firearm is a total knockoff of Calico's design, I can't say whether it's patent infringement or not, but the external appearance is significantly different from that of the Calico.
 
The Chinese are somewhat Famous for Blatantly Stealing Other designs.
though this is somewhat of a poor example of it.
 
If you want a "Good Example" of Chinese Design Theft that is Firearms Related, Look No Further than the Chinese AK's & SKS's (POS's but Exact Copys)
 
Fletchette asked, "Glock successfully sued Smith and Wesson for patent infringement. Why is China immune?"

I'm sure you know the answer. Our government will enforce the law, China will ignore it. There's nothing you can do.

And good old Bill Clinton sells them Most Favored Trading Status for only $200,000? He's not even a smart crook/traitor.

A friend that worked for Nissan said the Japanese car makers do the same thing. They will steal something from someone else, and put it in thousands of cars. Even if they have to go to court, it's too late. They have made so much money off of what was stolen, they don't mind paying a settlement years later. They still come out ahead.


Zedicus said, "If you want a "Good Example" of Chinese Design Theft that is Firearms Related, Look No Further than the Chinese AK's & SKS's (POS's but Exact Copys)"

I have not seen any of the Chinese AKs or SKSs, so I must take him at his word. However, I have handled a Chinese Makarov, and it was truly crap. I have a German made Mak, and it is an excellent firearm. There is no real comparison between the two. But like I said, I have only the one example to go by.
 
The Chinese also copied the Tokarev and Mosin-Nagant as well as many other designs (Heard they even Copied the AR15/M16)
 
Assuming that the design is Calico's how do we know that the Chinese aren't paying for a licence to use the design?
 
It's true that China copied quite a lot of firearms, but when it comes to SKS and AK47, the designs were actually transferred by the fUSSR together with the machinery, tools, and technicians to help set up and train the locals.
 
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