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@tiddy
Planet X are very open about how it works. Most frames are made in Taiwan or China. There are three ways this can work:
You design in house, and pay for tooling, moulds etc, you have an exclusive agreement with the manufacturer and maintain the IP on your designs. This is what the big companies do.
You design in house, but tooling, moulds etc are subsidised by the manufacturer in return for being able to sell your frames unbranded. (it costs a lot to tool up to make a crabon frame) Generally this comes with a proviso, such as they aren't allowed to be sold by different brands in the same market. (This is generally what Planet X do for most of their frames)
A brand buys an "off the peg" design, and brands it as their own. The IP is owned by the manufacturer, and no one brand has ownership.
There are grey areas such as those chinarello frames, not sure whether they are simply unbranded knock offs, albeit it made in the same factories.