Why surprise
@NZDubNurd ? Autel was formed by many former Launch Tech engineers. Launch had been in trouble for doing such things (Ford sued them) so why wouldn't Autel also do so?
When Uwe showed the article to me today, I said, "$33Million is not enough to repay for the damage caused."
We live it too. If we could find an entity to sue for all the clones, what number would/should we ask? The difficulty is that we could never do so in China where the clones are made. Been there and tried to see what might be involved. Few Western companies have had success.
Mind, I don't bash China for these things. In their culture, there is no understanding of Intellectual Property ownership. In their culture, if you make it, others can copy it. So they do. Is it right by West standards? No. But in the East, it does not even raise an eyebrow.
Individual Chinese may have the integrity - and many I have met do - to abide by Western thought on theft of IP. However, many in China are still wanting to succeed as Western people do and they will cut corners to achieve their goals.
China is still evolving and a very interesting place. I wonder what they will be in another 30-50 years. It will be hard for the West to keep up with them. They are learning and adapting very quickly.