By allowing anyone to knock off the chip without paying back the R&amp;D. There&#x27;s already a huge market of counterfeits and clones coming out of China for most things you can think of. It&#x27;s even easier without reverse engineering: hand design to a fab, individual or MPW, then package and sell the chips.<p>Very little of the price of chips you buy is the material or packaging costs. It&#x27;s mostly R&amp;D recoup, marketing, administrative, and profit. Most of these companies get all that straight through sales of the chips. Eliminate everything but a tiny margin over physical costs and whats left for further development?