Li Ye was not surprised that Ma Zhaoxian did not believe him. He thought that others could replicate and imitate the "Mount Akina Miracle Car" just by taking one look at it. After all, Li Ye had barred outsiders from entering that R&D Workshop these past few days, and even Ma Zhaoxian had never gone inside.
The reason Ma Zhaoxian had asked Li Ye to confirm it was so that he could be prepared when the visitors came tomorrow. They were leaders from above, after all. If they insisted on seeing First Branch Factory's new project, it would be somewhat troublesome to refuse them.
But Li Ye had now refused, so naturally Ma Zhaoxian was very puzzled.
Li Ye explained softly, "Uncle Ma, I actually know that so-called design patents don't do much good here in the mainland. So the reason I applied for a design patent was never to guard against thieves at home, but against those overseas automobile manufacturers."
"Hiss~~"
Ma Zhaoxian could not help drawing in a sharp breath. His gaze at Li Ye was full of confusion.
For all these years, mainland automobile companies had merely followed behind overseas carmakers, picking through their scraps. They treated technology ten years behind the times as treasure, and overall, they lagged by more than a full generation.
Even First Branch Factory's Jingcheng Brand business van had copied the appearance of Mitsubishi vans and imported Mitsubishi's chassis technology, barely stitching together a "nationally outstanding, departmentally outstanding" vehicle.
Yet Li Ye was now afraid that overseas manufacturers would copy First Branch Factory's design, and this design had come from Li Ye, an "outsider," no less.
Li Ye had studied economics! Although he had been managing technology at First Branch Factory all along, just look at how Wu Yan and the others