Worried about corporate espionage? A Herald Tribute report today reveals that NEC, the entire company, was duplicated. Company investigations uncovered the length to which some counterfeiters/competitors will go — from producing branded new product release announcements right down to their business cards:

After two years and thousands of hours of investigation in conjunction with law enforcement agencies in China, Taiwan and Japan, the company said it had uncovered something far more ambitious than clandestine workshops turning out inferior copies of NEC products. The pirates were faking the entire company.

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.

Now, do you have less trust in NEC products because they might be fake, or do you trust them far more because they are concerned about their brand reputation/quality if not lost revenues? If nothing else it shows that the pirates think NEC is worth copying.