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I was just reading about that.
The ELM327 is a PIC microcontroller that has been customized with ELM Electronics' proprietary code that implements the testing protocols. When ELM Electronics sold version 1.0 of its ELM327, it did not enable the copy protection feature of the PIC microcontroller. Consequently, anyone could buy a genuine ELM327, and read ELM's proprietary binary microcontroller software using a device programmer. With this software, pirates could trivially produce ELM327 clones by purchasing the same microcontroller chips and programming them with the copied code.[5][6] ELM327 copies were widely sold in devices claiming to contain an ELM327 device, and problems have been reported with the copies.[7] The problems reflect bugs that were present in ELM's version 1.0 microcode; those making the clones may continue to sell the old version.
Although these copies may contain the ELM327 v1.0 code, they may falsely report the version number as the current version provided by the genuine ELM327, and in some cases report an as-yet non-existent version.[8] Released software versions for the ELM327 are 1.0, 1.3a, 1.4b, 2.1 and 2.2 only.[9] The actual functions of these copies are nonetheless limited to the functions of the original ELM327 v1.0, with their inherent deficiencies.
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frankenbike
There's an article I can't find now about the cheap Chinese Bluetooth ones and how they all come from one original fake or something.
@frankenbike
Try and avoid any that say v1.5 on them, I think the v2.2 are generally genuine, if you go for a Bluetooth version