[kingu]

Omega v Costco, IIRC, is the reason why Apple will never again make another electronics device in the United States. In the ruling, the SCOTUS restricted the first purchase doctrine, saying that since the watches in question were made outside the United States, they had the ability to set their own market within the United States.

Costco had been importing gray market watches from Europe, and selling them in the United States for nearly half the retail price encouraged through the watch maker's US arm. They sued Costco for copyright infringement, as the watches they sold in the US bore a different (and tiny) mark on the case, and the ones Costco were selling didn't bear that same exact mark.

Apple is doing the same thing. US market iItems bear marks that are slightly different than the marks on products sold overseas. More significantly, however, is the ability to instantly add a particular mark for the US market, and through this, they have the ability to ensure that no distribution chain OTHER than Apple can sell iProducts in the US, as well as setting specific requirements on their retailers including minimum price floors.

It is why Nintendo isn't made here, why XBox isn't made here, why virtually every popular consumer product isn't made here - so that there is no ability for an open, free and competitive market to pressure the company into lowering prices.

No tech company is coming back to the United States until the First Purchase doctrine is applied to ALL products, manufactured in or outside the United States.

[af_vet_rr]

No tech company is coming back to the United States until the First Purchase doctrine is applied to ALL products, manufactured in or outside the United States.

No tech company is coming back to the US in a big way until the EPA and other government agencies are neutered. You have to go through hell to get a manufacturing facility built in the US these days, or bribe a lot of people and get some government entity backing you.

It's simply not worth it for cheap components, and it's far cheaper to assemble the device at the point of origin of the majority of components, than ship all of the components to the US and then assemble them.

Everytime you hear about a high-tech manufacturing facility being built in the US, such as the Samsung facility in central Texas, it's either making a high-dollar product that offsets the shipping and other costs, or there's been some backroom deals, some people bought off, and usually somebody high up in the government championing it.

The US was doomed the moment that the majority of components were being assembled overseas.