Just the other day, I reported that HD VMD was looking good to be the third candidate in the race for supreme leader in the HD format wars.Apparently three wasn’t enough, and so now there’s a fourth contender: the Chinese-made CH-DVD. Slated for an unspecified release in 2008, the new format isn’t looking all that impressive. It’s pretty much what’d you’d expect to see from China, an HD DVD knock-off.

According to Ars Technica, this isn’t the first time that China has tried to steal – uhm, I mean “create” – a standard for technology that’s already in wide use around the world. Back in late 2003, China tried to introduce the Enhanced Versatile Disc (or simply EVD) with the intention of stealing some of the DVD’s popularity. China’s efforts to “innovate” have also extended into the world of 802.11 Wi-Fi encryption; in late 2003, the Chinese tried to impose their WAPI standard on the international community by forcing companies who wanted access to the Chinese market to partner with one of eleven Chinese firms that licensed the standard. Needless to say, this effort, along with countless others, like an XML alternative, failed as well.

The reason behind this seemingly rampant copying of standards is actually a simple one, namely cost. With the current state of Western patent systems (both here and in Europe), companies have little problem patenting every action they undertake. As a result, it’s practically impossible for anyone to introduce a product for which they won’t have to pay a laundry list full of licensing fees. Going back to the EVD example, if China had managed to introduce their own DVD standard, they would have saved anywhere from $13 to $20 per player in CSS and MPEG-2 licensing fees – and that’s only for video playback, so add a few bucks more for the rest of the machine. The severity of the problem becomes even more evident when you consider China’s historically poor economy (yes, I know it’s expanding rapidly), as well as the fact that you can walk into any Wal-Mart and pick up a DVD player for next to nothing.

The same applies to China’s attempt to introduce a new Wi-Fi standard. The profit margins on electronics are razor thin, and in some cases (such as with the PS3 and Xbox 360), they don’t even exist! So, anything that (legitimate) Chinese companies can do to avoid having to pay additional fees is going to be attempted. Even though we might never actually see CH-DVDs here in the US, I’m sure that we can continue to see more and more tech-clones out of China.