TheEEStory.com

EEshock wrote:

"So what went wrong [with Solyndra]?" people ask. What went wrong is that as fast as this technology is being developed, it is being adapted and outright stolen by other, more manufacturing-savvy and efficient countries. That we have lost our edge in manufacturing is no surprise, but we have also lost the advantages of intellectual property protection as well. Patents are not of the value they once were.

Losing our edge in high tech manufacturing is indeed no surprise. In the globalization of the world’s economy it would be foolish to believe that easily translatable manufacturing techniques would not be employed in all countries that support high technology companies. This does not lead one to draw a bright line to the advantages (or disadvantages) of seeking patent protection. Nor does it mean that Solyndra lost out because their IP was stolen.

EEshock wrote:

It takes an enormous amount of resources to protect IP these days. The world is at economic war, and we are in the front lines. While it takes a lot of money to submit and defend patents, patents in and of themselves are not enough. Nowadays, it also takes both solid patent protection and good old-fashioned trade secrets. Solyndra, and many other companies before it, were lost to the Chinese because of cheap manufacturing, a weakened demand from a poor economy, and intellectual property theft. This theft is both from industrial espionage and theft from disrespect of intellectual property, an attitude that starts from the top rung of the leadership ladder.

A comparison of patent applications made by Solyndra and Suntech (a Chinese solar technology company) tells a different story. Both have been actively pursuing patent protection, with Solyndra U.S. Patent Applications numbering 31 and Suntech Power numbering 11 applications. Of more than a little interest is the list of inventors on the Suntech applications. All of the names in bold either work or have worked outside China at one time or another.

‘876 Guo; Peng; (Shanghai, CN) ; Ma; Xiaoguang; (Shanghai, CN) ; Song; Xianzhong; (Shanghai, CN)

‘631 Ji; Jingjia; (Wuxi, CN) ; Shi; Zhengrong; (Jiangsu, CN) ; Qin; Yusen; (Jiangsu, CN) ; Wenham; Stuart; (Jiangsu, CN) ; Artes; Graham; (Jiangsu, CN)

‘745 Ji; Jingjia; (Wuxi, CN) ; Wenham; Stuart; (Sydney, AU) ; Chen; Liping; (Wuxi, CN) ; Shi; Zhengrong; (Wuxi, CN)

‘928 Guo; Peng; (Shanghai, CN) ; Song; Xianzhong; (Shanghai, CN) ; Qiao; Qi; (Shanghai, CN) ; Wang; Yongqian; (Shanghai, CN)

‘540 Ji; Jingjia; (Wuxi, CN) ; Shi; Zhengrong; (Wuxi, CN) ; Qin; Yusen; (Wuxi, CN)

‘348 Li; Zhigang; (Shanghai, CN) ; Yun; Min; (Wuxi, CN) ; Yu; Huacong; (Shanghai, CN) ; Song; Xianzhong; (Shanghai, CN)

‘991 Chan; Palvin Chee Leong; (San Francisco, CA)

‘974 Chan; Palvin; (San Francisco, CA) ; Yu; Wang; (Jiangsu, CN) ; LeDucq; Matthew; (San Francisco, CA) ; Beebe; Andrew; (Burlingame, CA) ; Benga; Joseph; (San Francisco, CA) ; Steele; Jacob; (San Francisco, CA) ; Niehaus; Johann; (Dripping Springs, TX)

‘593 Ji; Jingjia; (Jiangsu, CN) ; Qin; Yusen; (Jiangsu, CN) ; Shi; Zhengrong; (Jiangsu, CN)

‘139 Li; Jian; (Jiangsu, CN)

‘117 Shi; Zhengrong; ( Wuxi, CN) ; Wang; Tihu; (Littleton, CO) ; Li; Jian; (Jiangsu, CN)

Of note are the bios of the principle technology officers of this company: Stuart Wenham and Graham Artes. These gentlemen (and many of Suntech’s inventors) don’t impress me as answering the trumpet calls of a ‘world at war’ in a nationalistic sense. They appear to be economic opportunists. The following graph is from How does U.S. government backing of Solyndra compare to China’s support of their solar industry?

As the article states, the chart is a bit misleading because the U.S. DOE loan program has spent ~$40B on a portfolio of greentech firms – with most of the money going to more forward-looking technologies. Whether the battle should be fought over today’s technology or those technologies of tomorrow is fodder for a separate discussion.

EEshock wrote:

I am no China basher. To the contrary, I admire the skill with which they have built their industries in a dramatically short period of time, and what an industrious people they are. While I may be incensed at their distain of patents and patent law.

I agree that there are problems needing to be addressed. A good place to start in an understanding of some of these is China: Intellectual Property Infringement, Indigenous Innovation Policies, and Frameworks for Measuring the Effects on the U.S. Economy.

The largest problem relates to opening up the Chinese market to ‘non-indigenous’ innovations. There has always been (and will always be) IP theft – and this mostly relates to the theft of trade secrets. The truth of the matter is, the Chinese are still coming out of a controlled economy in which ownership of anything was a foreign (as well as forbidden) concept. Their behavior relates not so much to a disdain of patent law as it does to a deep-seated cultural lack of understanding of it. Rest assured though, the greater the influx of individuals like Wenham and Artes into Chinese economic circles, the faster change will come.

EEshock wrote:

Solyndra and EEstor couldn’t be more different. EEstor has been run brilliantly, at least from the perspective of holding on to the crown jewels that they appear to have. They have amassed a patent portfolio surrounding the super-capacitor that compares to the Alamo under siege. Their crowning achievement, comparable to the feat of the technology itself, is their "Manhattan Project" style of stealth development. Every effort is being made to protect the manufacturing of the EESU. They have secured barium rights. EEstor has protected the secret sauce, and their trade secrets are more voluminous than their patent portfolio, if they are at all consistent with their sophisticated strategy.

Eestor has led a cloistered corporate existence and has sacrificed speed to market as a result. Whether this ends up being a brilliant strategy or not remains to be seen. Their patents serve to both advertise and protect. By ‘protecting the secret sauce’ I take this to mean protecting it by keeping it a secret. So far as I can determine, all Eestor has done in terms of ‘secret sauce’ protection has been to ensure that someone else’s secret sauce cannot be used against them (a move that has considerable value).

EEshock wrote:

The herculean effort being made to protect EEstor's intellectual property and the great extent that EEstor has gone to protect the manufacturing of the EESU, would lead one to think their behavior is consistent with the EESU being real.

I agree. Their IP strategy is consistent with a real product. Further, I believe that their most potent IP is to be found in their trade secrets.

And the recently passed America Invents Acts helps Eestor in this regard. See Trade secret assets: prior user rights expanded under the America Invents Act.

Last edited Sun, 25 Sep 2011, 1:14pm by DAP

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DAP: I'm the author, so thanks for changing the attributions...

This article reflects my opinions, and we do disagree on some of your points, but i appreciate your wanting to point out a different perspective...

regarding your comments #1 and #2:

Solyndra's technology was flawed for the market they were going after as being way too expensive vs Chinese panels at less than $1/watt. The Govt. should have spotted that in 5 minutes and refused to support 1/2 billion in loans, which only delayed the inevitable by 3 months. IP theft is not too likely as being an issue in this particular case, but there is a common theme of this in many of our failures, which was what I was trying to point out.

Here's what I said:

Solyndra, and many other companies before it, were lost to the Chinese because of cheap manufacturing, a weakened demand from a poor economy, and intellectual property theft.

#3-The tone of the article is not "China bashing"- it is critical or "bashing" the top rung of the Chinese Government that tacitly approves of ignoring and violating our IP, and actively conducts industrial espionage, complete with blackmail and bribes to get what they are after. If that is China bashing, I am guilty. I call it- relaying the current state of their behavior.

But again thanks for the comments, its a topic we should all care deeply about and want to do more to address.

-EEshock

Last edited Sun, 25 Sep 2011, 9:19pm by eeshock

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eeshock wrote:

DAP: I'm the author.

This article reflects my opinions, and we do disagree on some of your points, but i appreciate your wanting to point out a different perspective...

regarding your comments #1 and #2:

Solyndra's technology was flawed for the market they were going after as being way too expensive vs Chinese panels at less than $1/watt. The Govt. should have spotted that in 5 minutes and refused to support 1/2 billion in loans, which only delayed the inevitable by 3 months. IP theft is not too likely as being an issue in this particular case, but there is a common theme of this in many of our failures, which was what I was trying to point out.

Here's what I said:

Solyndra, and many other companies before it, were lost to the Chinese because of cheap manufacturing, a weakened demand from a poor economy, and intellectual property theft.


#3-The tone of the article is not "China bashing"- it is critical or "bashing" the top rung of the Chinese Government that tacitly approves of ignoring and violating our IP, and actively conducts industrial espionage, complete with blackmail and bribes to get what they are after. If that is China bashing, I am guilty. I call it- relaying the current state of their behavior.

But again thanks for the comments, its a topic we should all care deeply about and want to do more to address.

-EEshock

Sorry about the attribution error. Taking that and your comments into account, I've edited my post accordingly. Your topic touches on many important issues.

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I like dialog like this, no insults or condescension (not that I expected that from you, DAP, just some others)
its refreshing.

Thanks
-EEShock

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Great article EEshock!

I hope and think with the US's currency going down and China's going up, business and industry will and should come back. The only reason that China has had the advantage is because of their cheap energy and devalued currency. The world has supplied China with its technology and China has done very well and has helped their people to advance in, imo, a good way. Probally not all of the industry that left, but maybe 1/2. This will help create more jobs here and will enable us to export more also.
That said, as my opinion, the final stages with developing a production line for the EEsu I also hope it comes rather quickly. From what I read the new cap and battery technology is expanding quickly. 2 years post reveal should be rolling off new EEsu's from hopefully several production lines. This will help give the US an edge back that we lost.

Our IP of the US will stay here if business and industry decides to build here again. IMO, it is our own fault the loss of the US's IP to China.

Thanks, Eeshock and DAP- nice insights into the gloabal perspective on IP- and I agree- all this work on IP sure does point to at least the expectation of a commercially-viable product. At least, I hope so;-)

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I guess I missed some news, where does that come from:
"They have secured barium rights."

??

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Talk about putting the cart before the horse...

Oops, sorry eggs

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CapMan wrote:

Talk about putting the cart before the horse...

Oops, sorry eggs

Why bother? What is the point of securing supply if you don't need it? :)

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eggdescrambler: Maybe someone could clarify whether EEstor has secured the rights to barium production or not:

"In Richard Weir's famous interview, he claims that he has staked a claim on a barium mine in Nevada".

I thought this to be established a couple of years ago...

anyone?

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eeshock wrote:

eggdescrambler: Maybe someone could clarify whether EEstor has secured the rights to barium production or not:

"In Richard Weir's famous interview, he claims that he has staked a claim on a barium mine in Nevada".

I thought this to be established a couple of years ago...

anyone?

There has been no definitive information linking Eestor to a barium mine- in the leaked interviwe, DW said they were in the process of securing the rights- but there is no public record that I know of that shows this.

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eeshock wrote:

eggdescrambler: Maybe someone could clarify whether EEstor has secured the rights to barium production or not:

"In Richard Weir's famous interview, he claims that he has staked a claim on a barium mine in Nevada".

I thought this to be established a couple of years ago...

anyone?

No

There are major sources of Bariite found in the United States. But a new one is just found in Nevada. We're writing? to get the sole rights to that. And looks like that's going to be done. Then we have large amounts of it in Mexico. And owned by US companies. You can also bring that in from other parts of the world in very high volume. So, the United States Geological Service, with *out* the stuff I've got in Nevada, says there's at least 2 billion tons of stuff in known reserves.

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eeshock wrote:

eggdescrambler: Maybe someone could clarify whether EEstor has secured the rights to barium production or not:

"In Richard Weir's famous interview, he claims that he has staked a claim on a barium mine in Nevada".

I thought this to be established a couple of years ago...

anyone?

This is one of the worst examples of hype in the history of the EEStory, and an embarrassing chapter. There was a speculative mining company, Stardust Explorations, which posted the EEStor leaked audio on their website, obviously to cause potential investors to think they were the company that EEStor was looking at.

But whether or not that's true is more or less completely irrelevant. Barite is a very common mineral, mined in high volume by many suppliers, and there would be little if any benefit to EEStor to "secure a supply" before they are getting ready to start high-volume manufacturing.

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Lensman wrote:

eeshock wrote:

eggdescrambler: Maybe someone could clarify whether EEstor has secured the rights to barium production or not:

"In Richard Weir's famous interview, he claims that he has staked a claim on a barium mine in Nevada".

I thought this to be established a couple of years ago...

anyone?

This is one of the worst examples of hype in the history of the EEStory, and an embarrassing chapter. There was a speculative mining company, Stardust Explorations, which posted the EEStor leaked audio on their website, obviously to cause potential investors to think they were the company that EEStor was looking at.

But whether or not that's true is more or less completely irrelevant. Barite is a very common mineral, mined in high volume by many suppliers, and there would be little if any benefit to EEStor to "secure a supply" before they are getting ready to start high-volume manufacturing.

This a good summation, Lens- and gives credence to one of the scenarios discussed here, and to which I suscribe- that Eestor thought they would be ready by now- thus the 'in the process of' securing rights to a Barium source- but after running into some sort of snag/hold-up on completion of the production line, did not follow through with securing such rights, which would be premature until the production line was complete, working and able to produce an EESU.

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Whether or not Eestor has secured rights to barite mining is less important than the fact that this resource is abundant. What Eestor’s intellectual property indicates is that they recognize that their product will be a consumer product and that the cost of its manufacture will be important sooner rather than later. The fall of Solyndra is just further evidence of this.

As suggested by EEshock, Solyndra couldn’t compete because solar panels made in China (using standard silicon technology) are less expensive. They are less expensive, in part, because their production is performed in a highly automated fashion. They are also less expensive, in part, because the Chinese government is heavily funding their research. Here is one opinion: Chinese cheaters? How China dominates solar. But this begs the following question: Are the Chinese near-sighted and funding a very short term industrial effort if the cost of solar-generated electricity from their panels exceeds or merely matches the cost of electricity generation by other means? What solar energy technology still needs is a game changer. Perhaps the topic item introduced by Doug in One square kilometer graphene sheets will fit into this somewhere – MIT Setting Up Industrial-Scale Graphene Printing Press.

Of course, we are focused on a different (but closely related) game changer on this forum. I am of the opinion that it will be so not only because an EESU as advertised is a ‘quantum leap’ advance in energy storage capability, but also because the raw materials used in its manufacture are relatively inexpensive and the process for making the energy storage components in an EESU are related to established processes used in chip manufacture. Although they are attempting to patent compositions and processes related to the raw materials used in their EESU manufacture, the real Eestor edge is in whatever new wrinkles they have added to standard chip manufacture processes used in printing their electrodes and dielectric layers. And just as in the wrinkles that some group of smart engineers will add to the MIT graphene process, the Eestor wrinkles will never be made public.

Up until now, many of the key technological advances in the high-technology sector can be found in the patent literature because corporations are afraid that others will independently ‘invent’ their trade secrets and then sue them for infringement. They therefore dislose critical parts of their technology in an attempt to patent it so that this does not happen. Even though it is in vogue to discuss intellectual property theft, for the most part such ‘theft’ is quite legal (except in software where it is just blatant exact copying) and is simply a matter of modifying someone else’s disclosure in a way that obviates infringement of their claims. Of course, foreign competitors also take advantage of patent disclosures. In many cases, the patent claims granted in foreign jurisdictions (if one can get them at all) are not as comprehensive as they are in the U.S., and enforcement is always an issue (as is currently the case in China). In order to level the field of play, the America Invents Act (AIA) makes IP trade secrets a much more valuable asset. See Trade secret assets: prior user rights expanded under the America Invents Act.

The America Invents Act now provides trade secret owners and other alleged infringers with the “prior user defense” against patent infringement claims for all inventions if the trade secret owner or other accused infringer can demonstrate internal commercial use (or other commercial uses) of the subject matter at issue in the patent infringement claim at least one year prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention.

The amendments to 35 U.S.C. § 273 in the newly passed law couldn’t have come at a better time for Eestor.

Last edited Mon, 26 Sep 2011, 9:22am by DAP

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I hope DW reads Dan's stuff. imo the following is a major reason EESTOR needs to get the lead out and make a move.

dap wrote:

Up until now, many of the key technological advances in the high-technology sector can be found in the patent literature because corporations are afraid that others will independently ‘invent’ their trade secrets and then sue them for infringement. So even though it is in vogue to discuss intellectual property theft, for the most part such ‘theft’ is quite legal (except in software where it is just blatant exact copying) and is simply a matter of modifying someone else’s disclosure in a way that obviates infringement of their claims. In order to balance out the score, the America Invents Act (AIA) makes IP trade secrets a much more valuable asset. See Trade secret assets: prior user rights expanded under the America Invents Act.

The America Invents Act now provides trade secret owners and other alleged infringers with the “prior user defense” against patent infringement claims for all inventions if the trade secret owner or other accused infringer can demonstrate internal commercial use (or other commercial uses) of the subject matter at issue in the patent infringement claim at least one year prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
The amendments to 35 U.S.C. § 273 in the newly passed law couldn’t have come at a better time for Eestor.

Ignore at your own peril.

Amazing that after all this discussion no one mentions that ESStor is not in a secure building. If China wants to know how to build a EESU they already do know. The Chinese can steal some of the most guarded secrets we have but cannot ge to a small buisnees in a strip mall? Please!

cechilders wrote:

Amazing that after all this discussion no one mentions that ESStor is not in a secure building. If China wants to know how to build a EESU they already do know. The Chinese can steal some of the most guarded secrets we have but cannot ge to a small buisnees in a strip mall? Please!

Honestly I doubt that their family jewels are within the grasp, so to speak, of prying competitors. I'm thinking that they have a secure lab at lockheed or somewhere else that is heavily protected. To not have secured their working area would be a glaring discrepancy in their strategy.

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Chinese manufacturing of the the EESU is not in Weirs' game plan. That would be the fastest path to spawning unauthorized technology transfer and subsequent competition. On the upside, EESU manufacturing will be largely automated, negating the main advantage the Chinese offer, which is a vast cheap labor pool.

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eeshock wrote:

cechilders wrote:

Amazing that after all this discussion no one mentions that ESStor is not in a secure building. If China wants to know how to build a EESU they already do know. The Chinese can steal some of the most guarded secrets we have but cannot ge to a small buisnees in a strip mall? Please!

Honestly I doubt that their family jewels are within the grasp, so to speak, of prying competitors. I'm thinking that they have a secure lab at lockheed or somewhere else that is heavily protected. To not have secured their working area would be a glaring discrepancy in their strategy.

But what about the forklift? Surely they would not have had the forklift if they were not producing the EESU there. Why does DW spend his time in the office instead of the secret lab?

Sean wrote:

eeshock wrote:

Chinese manufacturing of the the EESU is not in Weirs' game plan. That would be the fastest path to spawning unauthorized technology transfer and subsequent competition. On the upside, EESU manufacturing will be largely automated, negating the main advantage the Chinese offer, which is a vast cheap labor pool.

My position is that it is inevitable. If EESus actually ever materialize, they will be produced in China, Whether it's in DW's game plan or not. Once the technology is out there, the demand will be so huge that production in China is unavoidable, DW can profit by it, or he can ignore it, but it will happen.

Understand this – as long as the Weirs have a controlling interest in Eestor, EESUs will never be manufactured in China; software control of the manufacturing equipment and processes will remain a closely guarded secret, and the manufacturing will likely be as compartmentalized as possible in the U.S. (and perhaps Canada).

To think otherwise means you have not been paying close attention.

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DAP wrote:

Sean wrote:

eeshock wrote:

Chinese manufacturing of the the EESU is not in Weirs' game plan. That would be the fastest path to spawning unauthorized technology transfer and subsequent competition. On the upside, EESU manufacturing will be largely automated, negating the main advantage the Chinese offer, which is a vast cheap labor pool.

My position is that it is inevitable. If EESus actually ever materialize, they will be produced in China, Whether it's in DW's game plan or not. Once the technology is out there, the demand will be so huge that production in China is unavoidable, DW can profit by it, or he can ignore it, but it will happen.

Understand this – as long as the Weirs have a controlling interest in Eestor, EESUs will never be manufactured in China; software control of the manufacturing equipment and processes will remain a closely guarded secret, and the manufacturing will likely be as compartmentalized as possible in the U.S. (and perhaps Canada).

To think otherwise means you have not been paying close attention.

"Class, PAY ATTENTION!!!"

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The past four hundred years of China-West relations was marked by western exploitation of China. Read about the opium war for a better grasp of how low the British sank in their attempts at subjugating the Chinese. For this reason the chinese have no guilt about exploiting the west. Within one week of an eesu powered product being sold to the general public, that product will be sitting in a lab in China being carefully dissected and reverse engineered.

Last edited Tue, 27 Sep 2011, 3:06pm by Lowell

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actually, make that 1 day.

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China is our enemy. If at all possible, we should crater their economy by enacting stiff tariffs and moving mfg back to the US. We should disallow ANY product produced in China that relies on stolen IP into the US.

DAP wrote:

Sean wrote:

eeshock wrote:

Chinese manufacturing of the the EESU is not in Weirs' game plan. That would be the fastest path to spawning unauthorized technology transfer and subsequent competition. On the upside, EESU manufacturing will be largely automated, negating the main advantage the Chinese offer, which is a vast cheap labor pool.

My position is that it is inevitable. If EESus actually ever materialize, they will be produced in China, Whether it's in DW's game plan or not. Once the technology is out there, the demand will be so huge that production in China is unavoidable, DW can profit by it, or he can ignore it, but it will happen.

Understand this – as long as the Weirs have a controlling interest in Eestor, EESUs will never be manufactured in China; software control of the manufacturing equipment and processes will remain a closely guarded secret, and the manufacturing will likely be as compartmentalized as possible in the U.S. (and perhaps Canada).

To think otherwise means you have not been paying close attention.

He doesn't have to, they can buy a few and reverse engineer. couple that to their large industrial espionage practices and they'll be making them within a few years.

Sean wrote:

DAP wrote:

Sean wrote:

eeshock wrote:

Chinese manufacturing of the the EESU is not in Weirs' game plan. That would be the fastest path to spawning unauthorized technology transfer and subsequent competition. On the upside, EESU manufacturing will be largely automated, negating the main advantage the Chinese offer, which is a vast cheap labor pool.

My position is that it is inevitable. If EESus actually ever materialize, they will be produced in China, Whether it's in DW's game plan or not. Once the technology is out there, the demand will be so huge that production in China is unavoidable, DW can profit by it, or he can ignore it, but it will happen.

Understand this – as long as the Weirs have a controlling interest in Eestor, EESUs will never be manufactured in China; software control of the manufacturing equipment and processes will remain a closely guarded secret, and the manufacturing will likely be as compartmentalized as possible in the U.S. (and perhaps Canada).

To think otherwise means you have not been paying close attention.

Understand this, China doesn't give 2 shits about what Weir wants, or about what patents he has. If this thing works, it will replace every other battery technology (with in a given foot print) What do you suppose that market is worth? several hundred billion a year at least. Do you really think China will sit idly by and watch as that revenue stream shifts to the US? You are the one that hasn't been paying attention.

I also believe that there will be a massive attempt to reverse-engineer the EESU. It has not escaped my attention that this process has already started and that this blog is carefully scrutinized by some who will be attempting to do so. There may even be some working prototypes within a year or two. Many here have debated the technology and believe the EESU is not possible because it violates the principles of electrostatics. I agree with them (for the most part) and that is why I believe reverse engineering an EESU at Eestor’s cost will be very difficult. It is not a capacitor by the standard definition. Not only will copycats have to understand the science in order to build in efficiencies, they will also then have to modify fab equipment in order to enable those tweaks. I do not believe it will be as easy as deciphering the exact composition of Eestor’s CMBT; understanding the alumina coating in detail; getting the coated particle to polymer ratio just right; and then just throwing together a printing process in order to make dielectric layers. Following is just one example why.

And on top of not only that, we have a patent process, a patent pending process, where we can polarize our dipoles so they *all* shift through 45^°. That means our polarization saturation has been improved by at least a factor of 4.

This has been batted around on this site and still nobody knows what this statement means with any certainty [Note: I wager that we will never see this ‘pending’ patent application]. Let’s assume that what he says is correct about the quoted factor of 4. An improvement of 25%, let alone a factor of 4, would be a huge advantage in a consumer product. And this is just one of many possible ‘tweaks’ that could be made. Indeed, there are quite a few posters here with experience in chip manufacture who think what DW is doing can’t be done.

Everything we’re doing in this factory has never been done before. My God, the list is unlimited.

OK, so there may be some hubris in this statement. Let’s just assume that many things have never been done before. Get any one of those many things wrong and you are nowhere.

Go back to my first post and count the bolded names. If you want to take a nationalistic view of this, I’d be more afraid of a European corporation reverse-engineering an EESU than one in China.

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And a bit off topic, those who are afraid of China are foolish. It's a billion potential customers. There is plenty of room for them in the world and not as an enemy.

Thoughtful execution of how to manufacture an eesu and protect it from copying will pay huge dividends. I expect dw has spent a fair amount of time on it.

supamark wrote:

China is our enemy. If at all possible, we should crater their economy by enacting stiff tariffs and moving mfg back to the US. We should disallow ANY product produced in China that relies on stolen IP into the US.

It is easy to break up the world based on borders. It is more difficult to come to an understanding of how corporations work both inside and across those borders. It might be more useful to view the world according to a complex mixture of (i) governments; (ii) citizens; and (iii) corporations. There is an interesting fluid dynamic now in China involving (i), (ii), and (iii). By the way, many of the (iii) in China are U.S.corporations (whatever that means). Do you want to view them as your enemies as well?

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pageman99 wrote:

And a bit off topic, those who are afraid of China are foolish. It's a billion potential customers. There is plenty of room for them in the world and not as an enemy.

Thoughtful execution of how to manufacture an eesu and protect it from copying will pay huge dividends. I expect dw has spent a fair amount of time on it.

Actually, that is at least in part what this topic is about. It just took us a while to get there.

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