AllLookSame iPhone? and Intellectual Property in China

                      Apparently the Chinese engineers have managed to create a knock-off iPhone. This is a functional knock-off, not a scam with an empty shell. So, they copied not only the hardware, but also the software.

                What I find interesting about the Chinese culture is that they do not believe that ideas should be owned by anyone. There is some truth to this. Any inventions, artistic creations, and scientific breakthroughs owe much to the ideas of others past and present. To put a patent and/or copyright protection on a product which is really a culmination of one’s culture, and reap the benefit of it personally, does seem wrong to some degree. There are many ideas and contributions to our culture that cannot be protected in a practical manner. Whether you end up with something that can be copyrighted, patented, or credited is a matter of luck. Many people have contributed to the steps in-between, which cannot be patented, copyrighted, or credited. If you have ever worked for a large organization, this is quite obvious.

                             The Chinese, especially because of their Marxist past, see their intellectual contributions almost like the Open Source movement. It becomes a fair game to take the ideas of others if you don’t protect your own ideas. Chefs have always been operating (and thriving) in this environment, since one cannot copyright recipes.

                            About two dumpling restaurants in New York at war with each other. I find it interesting that the owner of the original restaurant, Lucas Lin, does not understand what his competitor meant by “We’re all Chinese”. Even though I’m not Chinese, I understand it. What he means by it is that dumpling is a culmination of the Chinese culture that all Chinese people are part of. It’s sort of like saying, “We are all Open Source programmers.” Lin does not own the idea of dumpling. He wasn’t even the first person to think of opening a restaurant that sells nothing but dumplings in New York. His original contribution was to use a memorable mascot to strongly brand a dumpling business, but why couldn’t someone else also copy that idea, just like Lin simply copied the idea of dumpling, and the idea of opening a dumpling-only restaurant?

Copying the ideas of others become unfair only when you protect your own ideas. If you do not protect your own ideas, then copying the ideas of others become a fair game.

                                              SOURCE: OMNI NEWS