During travels to China, one place I’d like to have visited but didn’t get a chance to, was a city somewhere in the south where producing name brand products is a way of life. According to the person who told us about this city, the manufacturers have been in the business for centuries (literally), and the goods they produce are of excellent quality. The only hitch is that this city specializes in making counterfeit goods.
I was reminded of that place when I was reading "Next step in pirating: Faking a company," in today’s International Herald Tribune. According to this fascinating article by David Lague, NEC discovered a cross-country operation that had seized its identity — producing not only NEC counterfeit goods but also electronics it had done research and development on itself. It was, in essence, a parallel electronics company operating under the NEC brand.
