Comment Re:Exactly (Score 1, Interesting) 241
Sounds like Directed Electronics Inc (DEI). If you want a car starter you either buy a Compustar or a DEI...there is nobody else left. Over the years DEI has bought out several competitors, if only for their patents. Viper, Clifford, Python...all DEI (now), and all sell the exact same products.
Some /.s might know that Viper (a DEI company) just released an iPhone interface for their starters. Pretty neat idea, no? I thought so, I was going to do something similar for my 4th year EE progect at school...until this came out. Anyway, while researching this I noticed that Clifford filed a patent for this in 1989, 11 years before being bought out by DEI, only to have DEI sell a product using that patent under their own name 9 years after that.
Crazy how this stuff works.