Put the discussion on hold for the time being. I'm asking bitmine directly for I certainly do not want to be put in the middle of such controversy. I can certainly see a number of possibilities for how it has ended in this stalemate, and it is not clear to me that there is incontrovertible evidence saying that JT produced these illegally, nor that any stealing was involved. A statement from bitmine is the only thing that can clear this up one way or another. If bitmine do not respond then I have to assume Innosilicon do indeed have the right to produce exact copies and sell these chips.
Bitmine have already put up a list of authorised distributors:
http://bitmine.ch/?page_id=5204. If the hardware has been originally acquired from an entity not on that list, it's most likely counterfeit or stolen.
If you check the news
http://bitmine.ch/?page_id=863, you should know bitmine is just in co-operation with some Chinese company. They just bought the chip from the Chinese company and name it as "Coincraft A1" chip. The Chinese company can also sell the A1 chip. They can call it any name they want like "ABC A1" chip. So the question comes: Does the "Coincraft A1" chip means "A1" chip？I don't think so. This is something like Mcdonalds can make their hamburger and KFC can make their own too.
We do NOT buy chips from bitmine and have no business with them.
From that link:
Designed from scratch, Bitmines Coincraft A1 is a third generation Bitcoin Mining IC developed by Bitmine in co-operation with a team of expert engineers from Innosilicon.
Doesn't say bitmine bought the chip from a Chinese company.
I'm assuming that the R&D funds came from bitmine and it's customers and that Innosilicon was contracted by bitmine for R&D, ergo, bitmine retains IP rights of the A1 chip. Unless the use of the A1 chip in these Chinese 28nm miners has been authorised by bitmine, what we're seeing here is corporate theft and entities being in possession of or receiving these miners, liable for a criminal offence.
and the major contributor to the know-how of the inner workings that led to its development. We are aware of things like the one happening here and we even made a press release news concerning this matter:
http://bitmine.ch/?p=5178Whoever purchases these does that on its own risk and may be liable in its own country since we hold IP on that.
Yes, that's China.
You may assume all you want, but we have yet to see a statement from Innosilicon about this issue whereas bitmine have already made their position quite clear. On the current balance of probabilities it would appear these Chinese machines based on the 28nm CoinCraft A1 are indeed manufactured from stolen tech.