Sunday, June 29, 2008

Counterfeiting

Reading about how sophisticated the counterfeiting operation has become for many electronics products. The thing is though, if these products really are practically so identical to the real ones (leading manufacturers to have to use high-tech methods to leave signature traces, like a sort of serial number), then is this such a problem? I mean, if the counterfeits of say a computer processor are so professional that they're otherwise indistinguishable from the real thing unless the owners etches a serial number on the chip in nano-sized writing.....then perhaps as consumers we should be happy to be using counterfeits. If it's still profitable to be doing this, then perhaps the investment that the company made in its innovation process wasn't so great, or perhaps something which others can easily do shouldn't be protected by such strong patents. And the counterfeiter is playing a role in driving down prices through enhanced supply. Obviously when it comes to counterfeiting cash, this is a slightly different matter, though.

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