Completely agree, in cloning the company one would add his/her own interpretations and approaches to problems and features just by implementing as a engineer who is not at the cloned company. The twist is the differentiation that one intuitively feels exists or can be created that makes the pursuit of cloning that much more meaningful and perhaps effective. (just re-posting this comment as it applies to yours).

Which automaker was first? How come there are so many still out there?