While driving this morning I heard the latter part of an interview with a gentleman saying the Chineese government was giving the go ahead for manufacturers to market high speed rail technology as their own.
He said that Chineese manufacturers claim sufficient innovation to justify proprietary ownership of current technology, while existing manufacturers are claiming infringment. He also said that while existing manufacturers have legal redress, it would be years to make a ruling to stop chineese actions.
“Train Makers Rail Against China’s High-Speed Designs” - see:# http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704814204575507353221141616.html?mod=googlenews_wsj# and/ or - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704814204575507353221141616.html?# They should have seen it coming - and if they didn’t, then they have no one else to blame but themselves. Who did they think they were dealing with - an ethical business ? I have a cousin who is in manufacturing consumer goods and who travels to China often on business. Years ago he told me this kind of behavior is typical of Chinese sub-contractors or manufacturers, and it’s only a problem to them when they’re caught. Sophisticated companies have learned to simply prevent or minimize the problem by either not outsourcing to the Chinese anything with the the real good technology in it, or else splitting it up between several Chinese companies unknown to each other, and/ or other methods, etc. so that no one Chinese entity has all of the ‘keys to the kingdom’ within its knowledge or control. (Kind of like keeping teenagers out of the liquor cabinet, or from driving the car while you’re away on a trip . . . [swg] ).# - Paul North.
Thanks for the informative links. I had wondered if this involved only one manufacturer, or if this was about some specific component design, but it involves Japanese and European manufacturers in the general application of all their technology!
There’s a saying, if you’re going to steal, steal big!
I suspect and hope future developement of high speed trains in the U.S. will be incremental and rational because of the unique needs of american railroading; and there are already fantastic resources for innovation right here.
Also, I can only hope the highest standards are followed as this resolute future unfolds.
And there have been others against US companies who have employed Chinese citizens trained at US University and then caught them looting trade secrets. Many never went to court as the company did not want the word to get out.
Based on how the Chinese seem to have an appetite for reverse engineering and outright coopting of Overseas manufacturers product lines one has to wonder how General Electric is going to hold it’s goal of selling the Chinese Railroads GE’s Locomotives?
Found this linked article that mentions how GE shipped the first two GE EVO’s to China as complete units.
Then the balance of 298 locomotives will be 'KITS" to be assembled in China with eventual local content of about 80%.
FTL: *“…“They will have up to 80 percent local content,” [*Lorenzo] *Simonelli,[GE Transportaton,Global President] told Reuters on the sidelines of a press conference to announce the delivery of the trains, which are valued at $450 million…”[*information added ]
The question seems to be, How much business and product can you sell the Chinese, before they copy your product and then they starty selling it back to your customers for a cheaper price? Dancing with the Devil, is it good business?
GE has been selling China locomotives since the 80’s. What I find surprising is GE’s recent statement that they would like to get back into building electric locomotives for high speed rail by partnering with Chinese firms. Wouldn’t
99.99 % of what China makes is stolen design. The other 0.01 I just can’t prove. What the heck do they care. Everything that an outside firm builds or imports into china to manufacture a product. Immediately belongs to the chineese plant owner.
I remember reading in a local Canadian newspaper several years ago that a small foundry east of Toronto was doing quite well because of the Chinese copying. The small Canadian company was doing small casting runs (less than a thousand pieces) for major North American companies. Why? They had ethics. Simply put, they had access to the patterns but they didn’t own them and everything was returned to the original owners, patterns and castings. The major companies couldn’t trust the Chinese foundries not to keep the design for themselves.
Reverse engineering is not as easy as one might think. “Air & Space: Smithsonian” had an interesting article a year or so ago about the Soviet reverse engineering effort which produced the Tu-4 from the B-29. A fair amount of original engineering was involved to make reasonable copies and insure that they worked properly when everything was put together.
A story (possibly apocryphal) was told some years back that the Chinese built a carbon copy of a Boeing 707 but it wouldn’t fly because they didn’t get the center of gravity right.
That is an interesting point. Reverse engineering is really just copying the design. Since you don’t have to perform or even understand the engineering in order to copy the product, the use of the term, “engineering” in the designation, “reverse engineering” is really a misnomer. There is no engineering required with reverse engineering.
It is easy to reverse engineer a design if you understand the design in the first place. This is likely to be the case when reverse engineering simple devices. But to reverse engineer something that is complex often leads the copycat to wonder why the original designer did things the way they did.
This quandary pulls the copycat toward the roll of engineer, and engineers and designers always want to claim invention of something unique. It is a lot of work just to copy a complex design, and if the copycats do not fully understand the rationale behind it, they are likely to wander into their own quicksand of re-engineering.
If you watch the military channel. You will seen when the U.S.S.R. flew hundreds of the B-29 /TU–4 over their MAYDAY celebration.
There was an initial problem. Someone folded the plans before they were reproduced. The person or persons reproducing the plans did not open the fold. The front ?10? feet was angled down at a 30dig. angle. They produced about 4 before someone stated it was wrong.
When evaluating the ethics of the businesses there, don’t forget the contaminated Chinese drywall/ gypsum board that was sold, shipped here, and installed in many homes in the southern US over the past few years, and the contaminated baby formula and milk that was sold in their own market, also a few years ago. I’m sure there are some ethical Chinese businesses, but the ‘rotten apples’ and repeated allegations of technology theft are spoiling perceptions of the rest of the world for the rest of that ‘barrel’.
About 3 yrs ago, I was at a trade show where there were several Chinese vendors displaying their transporation equipment. One had developed a new enhancement that the others didn’t have. Right before my eyes, several members of the “have-not” team went over to the equipment of the “haves” and started taking down dimensions, notes, photos, etc. The next year, they had the enhancement in their equipment. It was absolutely shameless copying.
…so they pillage from each other, in addition to pillaging from other countries.