I agree Phil, wholeheartedly.
That is what I have based my work on.
Copying or copy & tweak something is not worth much in & by itself. I do note that the Asians are turning out more engineers out of colleges by numbers of individuals than the US, but they are not yet on par with US & EU engineers from what I see and hear. That doesn't mean they won't be over time though. I have only a rough 2nd hand touch of Chinese work through a Chief Engineer friend who has all his short run tools & products made there and visits over a dozen times a year. The hand work necessary in his tools & products has dictated that they find low cost labor to be able to compete in world markets.
His work with Chinese engineers indicates to him that in China, engineers are taught to "follow the book", "do it by the formula", "adhere to the rules", and consequently he and his stateside crew have to make the smallest of decisions about design and tooling. It is EXTREMELY frustrating for my friend, and he doesn't want to do this for much longer.
Coming up with new concepts, or converting an obsolete structure or package into a whole new arena of cost & usability performance is where the money is to be found.
In spite of complaints about the patent system, it is still a viable way to get a truly better product to a larger amount of value for an individual designer or a small firm (as well as large firms who value non-trivial patents highly). Intellectual property in all its forms accounts for a super-majority of public company share value.
One of my non-used patents just sold for a 6 figure sum last year to a Fortune 500 company. It can be done, but I admit, it is never an easy task to come up with a truly better product, get a great patent application filed (not a junk application), and then get the product in production.
Bo