[dathinab]

> For me the concept of bricking device owned by an unsuspected user is a bridge too far.

Its also highly illegal, in the EU, at least as far as I know.

(Assuming they brick instead of just block the device) It's destruction of the user property, nothing less.

If it's "just" deciding to make their driver not work with 3rd party devices then it's legal, though. But highly offensive anyway as even the producer of the device using the USB chip might not know they are using a potential copyright/patent infringing chip.

[muro]

Buying or importing clones/fakes is also illegal in the EU.

[dathinab]

Yes but you need a court order to destroy them and the destruction has to be in a well controlled way.

More important interfaces are in general not protected by copyright or patent law. As such the chips _might_ be fully legal chips which just happen to have the same interface.

Lastly the manufacturer of the device which includes the chips might have bought the chips for which the driver was made and someone else in the supply chain might have switched them out, potentially creating the situation where there is no fault with anyone hit by this. And idk. but punishing random persons which metaphorically speaking have just been at the crime scene but are innocent and didn't even know there was a crime going on is _never_ ok.