• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

Intellectual Property Theft in the Industry

Rick

Rick

TS Member
Favourite Ride
Crux
I was talking to someone pretty well known in the industry earlier in the week and they were of the view a lot of manufacturers are not doing their bit to assist the industry combat IP theft in China (primarily).

The example I immediately thought of was Mack Rides selling to Flash to Lewa Adventure, who have also bought rides from a number of homegrown manufacturers that infringe on the rights of Vekoma, Zamperla, Intamin and & Funtime (and maybe others).

I guess money talks, considering the value of potential contracts in Chinese parks, creating a bit of an ethical headache.

Any thoughts?
 
Rick said:
I was talking to someone pretty well known in the industry earlier in the week and they were of the view a lot of manufacturers are not doing their bit to assist the industry combat IP theft in China (primarily).

The example I immediately thought of was Mack Rides selling to Flash to Lewa Adventure, who have also bought rides from a number of homegrown manufacturers that infringe on the rights of Vekoma, Zamperla, Intamin and & Funtime (and maybe others).

I guess money talks, considering the value of potential contracts in Chinese parks, creating a bit of an ethical headache.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
It does surprise me that they don't do more. We've seen in the past these knock-off rides have accidents that wouldn't be possible on an official version of the ride e.g. https://towersstreet.com/talk/threads/ride-park-accidents.3935/ (Dar's post about halfway down and the note Zamperla have about it being a knock-off).
I think the manufacturers probably don't want to see such an accident whether or not they made the ride or people perceive it to be one of their rides.
 
Rick said:
I was talking to someone pretty well known in the industry earlier in the week and they were of the view a lot of manufacturers are not doing their bit to assist the industry combat IP theft in China (primarily).

The example I immediately thought of was Mack Rides selling to Flash to Lewa Adventure, who have also bought rides from a number of homegrown manufacturers that infringe on the rights of Vekoma, Zamperla, Intamin and & Funtime (and maybe others).

I guess money talks, considering the value of potential contracts in Chinese parks, creating a bit of an ethical headache.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
Or looking at it from another perspective you could argue that Mack building a ride in that park is them doing there bit to counter knock-off rides.
China aren't going to start buying the real thing until they know it exists. I dare say Flash stands out as the best quality ride at that park. If the local Chinese Market like it they'll want the next big ride to be the real deal as well.
 
The Chinese state is too rich and powerful to do anything. Money talks. They've been selling cheap and dangerous Range Rover knock offs for years, yet Jaguar Land Rover have struggled to get anything done about it.

If a less economically and militarily powerful state was acting the way China has for the last decade, the west would have bombed them to the ground by now. Forget the concentration camps where genocide is being committed against Uyghur Muslims, there's so much western money going in and out of China that all our governments will do is wag a finger at them now then.

Sent from my VOG-L29 using Tapatalk
 
In the Mack example it’s very difficult situation to manage. I guess the other way of looking at it from Mack‘s point of view is ‘what happens if we don’t sell our ride to this park’ - the answer could well be that the park finds someone to build a copy that will infringe their copyright etc. So it makes sense to make sure they go for the real deal.
 
Copyrights and patents are a strange thing. It all depends which country you register them in and what design you have registered.

If you haven't registered your design within a certain country, then someone can make it and sell it there and you have no rights.

If you have copyrighted or patent something in a particular country, then someone can change the design slightly or colour to get around it.

Patents only covers a certain part of something and not necessary the whole product, you can pay £££££ to apply for the paten for only for it to get rejected. Not everything can be patented or copyrighted, especially if it is already in existence and commonly used/made

Edit, the following taken from a website showing the difference between copyright, patent and trademarks

Copyright is one type of intellectual property right. The other statutory IP rights include Trade Mark, Patents and Designs, each for different purposes.

Copyright is an automatic right which protects original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works.

A Patent is a registered right that gives the owner exclusive right to features and processes of inventions.

A Trade Mark protects logos and signs that are used in relation to a particular type of product or service.

A Design right protects the visual appearance of an object or part of an object.
Trade Marks and Design rights can be registered or unregistered.

For more information and other types of protection see: www.ipo.gov.uk, www.wipo.int
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
I think it is a simple case of money talks. A lot of parks will like that they can buy these knock off coasters for far less than the real thing woud cost. And your average visitor wouldn't really know the difference.

And then manufacturers simply cannot afford to not sell to the fastest growing theme park market in the world.
 
This is not isolated to theme parks, 'copyright' theft in China has been rampant for years. Does not matter what industry, be it food, electronics, motor vehicles, whatever. If it can be copied, chances are China have done it.

Even Apple, one of the richest and most strict companies in the world has struggled massively to combat this-, that is despite them directly contributing massive amounts to the Chinese government and economy through the products being manufactured there.

If a company as big as Apple, with the influence and deep ties it has with the country cannot really do anything, then I struggle to see how other companies will get much done.

Copyright is just not viewed culturally the same as it is here in the west, so it is a very difficult one.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top