It is as simple as that.
Bitmine and Innosilicon worked together to produce the chips, so both of them have rights to produce/resell the chips.
But even as Bitmine had an early start on availability of chips and great cheap costs, they FAILED to deliver their system successfuly and on time.
So AFTER my systems of 60T RUNNING over 1 month, and start to sell to public, Bitmine's system still NOT seeying anywhere.
From pespective of marketing strategy, this accusation is just a tactic to slow down our sales.
I agree. Both Bitmine and Bitmine and Innosilicon worked together to develop the chips, and no-one has posted any proof as to exactly what legal rights Innosilicon has to resell the chips, but it's certainly plausible that they do have some resale agreement based on the contract between the two companies. Innosilicon could have paid for part of the development in order to be able to retain some ownership of the IP.
It sounds like QuestionTime is simply spreading FUD to try to show down a potential competitor to Bitmine. Either post proof to back up your claims of IP theft or STFU.
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.
Authorised distributors of bitmine tech:
http://bitmine.ch/?page_id=5204 - unless the chips were sourced from one of these guys or bitmine themselves it's corporate theft.
Bitmine have already made themselves quite clear on the issue and until they've made a statement retracting the previous statement it's much more likely the the statement was deleted/moderated rather than retracted. Furthermore, we have yet to hear anything from Innosilicon to suggest that they have obtained the rights from bitmine to produce these chips for sale.
Certainly it's plausible Innosillion also have the rights to sell the chip, but it is also certainly plausible Innosilicon does not have the rights to sell the chip. In the absence of an official statement from Innosilicon contradicting the official statement from bitmine and the presence of the well known culture of rampant IP theft that goes on in China, on the balance of probabilities, it is much more likely the Chinese machines using 28nm A1 chips from Innosilicon are the product of stolen property and therefore illegal to receive and/or possess in most common law jurisdictions.
Customers have the right to purchase goods that are 100% legitimately manufactured. I would not want to buy a car that has been assembled from stolen parts.