We visited some days ago a company in France that makes automobile parts. It is quite a big company with a not bad reputation, here I won't tell its name. When we were asking a chef engineer about the company's R&D and its main products, he very secretly told us the company sometimes copys products of others. I just couldn't believe my ears coz normally he shouldn't have told us about that.

'' un XXXXX(product name) par exemple, souvent on mesure celui de XXX(a brand) et on prend ses dimensions , et puis on fait le meme, voila..."

I was a little surprised to find they are actually doing the same thing like those unknown asian companies.

Note that I dont support any illegal copy and this is just a very single example among the western companies

Ben.....mais pourquoi il a dit tout ça...? je vois pas sa motivation.

You know, it has finally been proved that spaghetti was first invented by Chinese and later copied by italian...the west has been copying Chinese invention for hundreds years, and all those anti-piracy crap was brought up only in recent decades.

Ben.....mais pourquoi il a dit tout ça...? je vois pas sa motivation.

I don't know either... maybe he'd just been drinking or something:)

You know, it has finally been proved that spaghetti was first invented by Chinese and later copied by italian...the west has been copying Chinese invention for hundreds years, and all those anti-piracy crap was brought up only in recent decades.

Oh really?? the spaghetti is a asian invention? but... let's just forget the spagetti stuff for a little while, it's just an invention of little importance.

It's very interesting... Chinese also invited gunpowder, the magnetis compass, paper and printing, paper money, etc... (all these we know since school). But after "discovering" China by Western people they just "borrowed" all these technologies and spread them rapidly and widely in thier own Western economy...
Here's the full info. "The Needham Puzzle: Why the Industrial Revolution Did Not Originate in China" by Justin Yifu Lin, University of California, 1992.
Link to 1,5mb PDF.
http://www.econ.ucla.edu/workingpapers/wp650.pdf

When we were asking a chef engineer about the company's R&D and its main products, he very secretly told us the company sometimes copys products of others. I just couldn't believe my ears coz normally he shouldn't have told us about that.

I think it's normal in all companies around the world. This kind of management officialy called "benchmarking".

That paper is enlightening. It seems that those folks tied up in the imperial examination system syndrome were really obsessed with an idealized past, and rote memory of all its teachings. They had no vision. Gotta have vision to be scientific.
But the opposite, ignoring the wisdom of the past, is a mistake too.

It's very interesting... Chinese also invited gunpowder, the magnetis compass, paper and printing, paper money, etc... (all these we know since school). But after "discovering" China by Western people they just "borrowed" all these technologies and spread them rapidly and widely in thier own Western economy...
Here's the full info. "The Needham Puzzle: Why the Industrial Revolution Did Not Originate in China" by Justin Yifu Lin, University of California, 1992.
Link to 1,5mb PDF.
http://www.econ.ucla.edu/workingpapers/wp650.pdf

Look at it this way, China may have invented paper money, but it shouldn't be printing Euros or Dollars now should it? Europe invented the car. China can build its own variations of cars, but it shouldn't make exact copies of other's cars. The devil is in the details.