Legalities may be dependent on the country of origin and honestly, most of the engineers may not even be aware that they're deceiving anyone, just trying to copy a device at low cost.
Most businesses do something that's identical to work done elsewhere. Many, many, many companies exist whose main line of business is to take a successful product and clone it cheaply for a market that can't afford the "authentic, professional" version. That is a perfectly normal, legitimate business.
I'm willing to bet that most of the engineers who did this phone never thought they were doing anything wrong. In fact, the "information should be free" arguments that many posters use on this site could be used to justify exactly the production of this phone!
IP protection gets interesting when it protects something you actually care about...
Most businesses do something that's identical to work done elsewhere. Many, many, many companies exist whose main line of business is to take a successful product and clone it cheaply for a market that can't afford the "authentic, professional" version. That is a perfectly normal, legitimate business.
I'm willing to bet that most of the engineers who did this phone never thought they were doing anything wrong. In fact, the "information should be free" arguments that many posters use on this site could be used to justify exactly the production of this phone!
IP protection gets interesting when it protects something you actually care about...