"rk" wrote in message
...
When a copy of the competitor's box was bought and disassembled
(before I joined) they found a hole in the front of the sheet metal of the
case exactly where it was in our company's. And the hole in our company's
case was there because of an ooops and they decided to just go with it as
is
and saved an iteration. *That* was a mindless copy.

Reminds me of a Star Trek short story I've read. Scotty needs a specialized
part that he can't duplicate onboard, but they're in a first contact
situation with buggers that are *extremely good* at copying things down to
the molecular level. Out of desperation, he gave them the part, and they
came back with duplicates that had the exact same wear. It took quite a bit
of effort to get them to understand he wanted a replacement that was *new*.