When the Merc first appeared i felt fairly ambivalent about it (and even considered one to add to familly brompton & strida). But, now the more I think about Merc as a direct copy of Brompton, the more I wish Brompton best of luck and hope they are sucessful in suing Merc for copyright theft and get massive damages (if only the legal system was fair and affordable).

As consumers its easy for us to just see the sticker price and forget all the development thats gone into an original product. As in the music and video business' downloading doggy MP3's and buying obvious chinese imported DVD copies is cheaper - but is it right ? Similarly, Why should someone else (merc) benefit from the creative efforts of another (brompton), without their costs.

Theft is theft period !