The Chinese are very agile in their bootlegging and just as apt at creating one-offs (ok, blatant ripoffs) of hot consumer brands. The CECT P168 phone is modeled directly against the upcoming iphone.

They have obviously copied the wallpaper but also many of the specs including: a 3.5-inch QVGA LCD touchscreen, a 2 Megapixel camera (actual resolution: 1.3 Megapixel) and it has an integrated music player, video player, a dictionary, and six speakers (!) for surround like sound. It sports a two sim card slot but apparently you need to switch between the two cards.

Obviously, IP issues need to be on the table between China and the U.S. in the next round of diplomatic ‘talks’. Here are some more pics (courtesy of Chinese blog phonedaily):

Clearly, this is not going to halt the bloodbath on our U.S. wallets (who doesn’t want this phone?!) but situations like this do pose serious challenges to people and companies wanting to create unique intellectual properties only to see potential profits overseas vanish before you can even get your own product out the door.