I suspect you're in a majority of one with this opinion-and it IS opinion-not fact! Mills Bros (Model Engineers) was taken over by Ayling Industries in the early 1960s-around 1961-who subsequently decided they could no longer support production (the reasons were never made clear-economic? didn't meet/match the wider Ayling Group product line? didn't want to be associated with the 'toy' image-who knows?) and production ceased in 1964. Woking Models subsequently acquired some/all of the existing factory spares inventory. Quite a few years later-ca early1970s an Indian businessman-Mr Kumar- acquired the tooling, jigs and fixtures for the Mills range. Whether he also acquired exclusive production rights and all other rights to the name is debatable-and unless you have viewed the actual relevant documents-impossible to say. Equally- it is unclear from what commercial or private entity he purchased the tooling and other 'rights'-and whether this entity had full legal ownership-and exactly what the sale covered.Then there have been at least two changes of manufacturer in India-again without viewing the documents you cannot say whether all rights were transferred at each stage.
The Austrialian Doonside Mills project began ca 1972-before the Indian engines appeared on the market. I doubt any lawyer would take you up on your assertion that every other replica is an illegal copy-the .25cc and 0.4cc miniatures certainly can't be-the Irvines have sufficient structural differences not to be copies. The Hobbs doesn't even look like a Mills-the only areas where you might be on firmer ground are the CS Mills and the few replicas made from Schroder crankcase castings......and I'm not sure what the legal position would be on the latter.....

ChrisM
'ffkiwi'