Patent Pending, of course, means that the item is not patented yet... but the manufacture is hoping the patent office will eventually get around to issuing a patent sometime in the future.

My bike is designated with an ® which would tend to prohibit faking the name or symbols, but not necessarily the geometry/fabrication.

As far as quality, one should assume that most of the China Direct E-Bay specials are made with price cutting as the primary objective.

There are, however, several companies with an internet presence beyond E-Bay, who seem to have long-term business goals which might be helped by at least attempting to provide quality products to the customers.