ianw2:
In my experience dealing with offshore manufacturers, the molds, etc. belong to the customer, not the shop (unless the customer is a rookie who doesnt know the ropes). The shop may well learn from manufacturing the parts/pieces for their customer, but they arent likely to jeopardize business by using the customers molds/toolings making no name knock offs.
Not really. As with most things the real answer is...it depends. It really all depends on what the part is (custom vs off the shelf), what it's used for, who owns the design and the nature of the purchasing agreement. You'll find every type of arrangement under the sun.
Material is usually the most expensive part of any product so the goal is always to reduce material costs. One way to do that is to avoid custom components whenever possible. Instead of designing your product such that it needs an o-ring or a screw that doesn't exist (custom), you design it so that you can use a standard size or type. Now you simply go to the company that makes or distributes them by the millions and negotiate a price for the quantity and frequency you need to buy. In this case the fabricator almost always owns the tooling and they are obviously selling those parts to who ever they want. Even here there are times when you might be pushing the fabricator beyond their capacity to produce so all manor of deals might be worked to get that increase in capacity. I've seen it involve tools, capitol and even building additions.
One other thing does happen and we Americans keep getting duped by the same old thing. An overseas company will approach you because they want to sell your product in their country. But...maybe because of corporate policies, government regulations or customer requirements, they want to build it over there. So, they pay you to tool them up and teach them how to produce the thing. Now they build and sell this product with your name on it and pay you a royalty.
Sometimes these pruducts show up in places they aren't supposed to be and are sold for less than you sell them for. Or...once they are tooled up and know how, they change the design a little and just tell you to go scratch. Or some other variation of this. I wouldn't be at all be surprised if some of this stuff has been done with scuba related products. Not everybody defines ethics the same way. Depending on the wording of the contract, patents involved and who knows what else, you may or may not be able to cost effectively or legaly do anything about it.
I've even seen tools get LOST...even really big tools. Who knows where they really went? What's even more amazing, I've found tools that weren't on any asset list. LOL so who knows where they came from?
I guess I could go on and on here with examples of different situations but probably nobody cares.