NEC - Faking a Company
The IHT has a great story about how NEC has been the victim of organized “theft” of their brand, with products made in Asia using the NEC label without the company’s authorization.
Perhaps most surprising is how widespread this was. From the article:
Evidence seized in raids on 18 factories and warehouses in China and Taiwan over the past year showed that the counterfeiters had set up what amounted to a parallel NEC brand with links to a network of more than 50 electronics factories in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
In the name of NEC, the pirates copied NEC products, and went as far as developing their own range of consumer electronic products - everything from home entertainment centers to MP3 players. They also coordinated manufacturing and distribution, collecting all the proceeds.
Just today I bought an NEC optical mouse for about US $5 in the Bainao computer market in Beijing, which seems much too low a price to pay. Also on the shelves were mice from LG, Microsoft and Logitech. It’s hard to tell what’s real and fake these days.
May 1st, 2006 05:22
Hey, thanks for linking to the NEC article. Unfortunately, this story doesn’t surprise me in the least. I have seen lots of products in China that were clearly ripped off from companies in other countries..