Slightly off-topic, how does this work in regards to copyright and all?
I'm not a lawyer, etc, etc. I have guesses as to what the laws say here, but no idea at all what they are elsewhere.
I've never read the EULA of Step 7 in depth, to see if it says it is only supposed to be used for Siemens products or not. I imagine that is the only way the user could get in trouble, and I can't imagine Siemens would start going after its users regardless.
At least in the US, reverse engineering for the purposes of interoperability is supposedly legal, as long as you don't have to defeat copy protection measures to use it.
I think the only trademark issues would come if VIPA was trying to confuse its customers into thinking they were actually official Siemens products (like buying foaklies from a street vender). From what little i've seen of VIPA's product, it seems to be marketed as a compatible alternative, not as the same thing. That said, customers are often idiots, and I've heard that Siemens gets tech support calls for them all the time. "What do you mean you don't support this module; it's in your rack?!"
I have no clue if patents could come into play or not, but at this point, a lot of the products have been out long enough that the patents might have expired anyway.
Siemens might have a trade secret claim against them, but only if the company was founded by former employees who left to set up shop on their own. Even then, I have no idea what really goes into that.
I'm sure Siemens tried (or at least looked into) to make VIPA go away when they first appeared, and the fact that they are still here says a lot to me....
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