Isn't the ebike market a reflection of the non-ebike market? Frame designs are similar across the board for all bikes in each genre, sure there are slight variations, but these are variations on the same theme. Design that works for non-ebike's will work for ebike's with a few modifications (compromises), maybe.
It is very rarely that innovative design makes it big in the non-ebike market, the big players tend to concentrate on changing part of a bicycle design and then patent that to protect it's copyright with a marketing term. The rest of the manufacturers end up implementing something similar, copyrighting their own name given to that design and so on and, it seems to me, that most of this is just marketing in order to keep things fresh and 'new' to attract new sales.
So, who invented the first diamond frame bicycle and who copied it ? Who invented the first bicycle with a bend in the downtube and who copied it? Does anyone hold the patents for these designs? If they do, then surely they will be very rich people.
As far as China is concerned, cheap copies have been a feature for decades, for all sorts of products, it's the quality of those copies that should be looked at in detail and if you get's what you paid for, then that's fine in my book. Also don't forget that, in the past, cheap Chinese imports used to be of such low quality that some were illegal according to the standards used in Europe, accordingly it seems the Chinese have 'upped' their game in order to meet European standards and maintain sales.
It is very rarely that innovative design makes it big in the non-ebike market, the big players tend to concentrate on changing part of a bicycle design and then patent that to protect it's copyright with a marketing term. The rest of the manufacturers end up implementing something similar, copyrighting their own name given to that design and so on and, it seems to me, that most of this is just marketing in order to keep things fresh and 'new' to attract new sales.
So, who invented the first diamond frame bicycle and who copied it ? Who invented the first bicycle with a bend in the downtube and who copied it? Does anyone hold the patents for these designs? If they do, then surely they will be very rich people.
As far as China is concerned, cheap copies have been a feature for decades, for all sorts of products, it's the quality of those copies that should be looked at in detail and if you get's what you paid for, then that's fine in my book. Also don't forget that, in the past, cheap Chinese imports used to be of such low quality that some were illegal according to the standards used in Europe, accordingly it seems the Chinese have 'upped' their game in order to meet European standards and maintain sales.