msum wrote: ↑Thu Apr 06, 2023 6:13 pm
Out of interest, does quality control testing get done at Golden to make sure that the heat treatment instructions were followed? I guess my question applies to all offshore manufacturing, whether Japanese, Taiwanese or Italian. And I assume that sharing HT information means an acceptance that it might be copied and used elsewhere? Not to be too untrusting here - I’m sure Spyderco would only work with partners they consider reliable.
A novel heat treat method could receive legal protection as a trade secret, so long as it derives independent economic value from not being generally known (e.g. produces favorable steel properties), and is subject to reasonable efforts to maintain its secrecy (limiting distribution, securing the information in a vault, not letting others near the facilities while the HT takes place).
That can entail things like contract provisions that prohibit disclosure or reuse of the heat treat method, and restricting access to the specific information within the partnering entities, and ensuring that they also use secure methods in handling the information.
I have no idea if the knife industry treats Heat Treat information this way, but there are legal frameworks in the realms of intellectual property and technology licensing for managing this kind of commercially valuable information.