Citation please. This is completely different from implementing a BIOS from a set of specs created from original source code.
To the degree there is protected IP, it would be covered by patents. Which are public. That's the point of a patent. And it doesn't matter if you were aware of the original art or not if you violate a patent.
If there are merely trade secrets/techniques that Tesla or anyone else simply hoped no one would be able to deduce but weren't otherwise protected, those are fair game.
Personal experience dealing with a team that reverse-engineered industrial hardware. They would acquire competitors' products and hand them off to teardown teams who weren't allowed direct communications with the rest of engineering. These strictures may have been a legal artifact of the company's significant background in software as well as hardware dev, or perhaps to deal with contractual issues, but they were firmly enforced.
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Citation please. This is completely different from implementing a BIOS from a set of specs created from original source code.
To the degree there is protected IP, it would be covered by patents. Which are public. That's the point of a patent. And it doesn't matter if you were aware of the original art or not if you violate a patent.
If there are merely trade secrets/techniques that Tesla or anyone else simply hoped no one would be able to deduce but weren't otherwise protected, those are fair game.
Personal experience dealing with a team that reverse-engineered industrial hardware. They would acquire competitors' products and hand them off to teardown teams who weren't allowed direct communications with the rest of engineering. These strictures may have been a legal artifact of the company's significant background in software as well as hardware dev, or perhaps to deal with contractual issues, but they were firmly enforced.