It's a common misconception that there is no IP law in China. Patents do exist, and you do have to respect them (at least if it is a chinese patent or you intend to sell into the patent's country). Of course, as with many things there, enforcement is spotty, so you might get away with it for a while. But the days are over where you could completely fly under the radar with a grey market production. It's hard to completely hide your big ass illegal factory in Shenzhen, especially when you have to register every little thing with the state. As in every other country, your competitors or patent owners can just get a lawyer, look up your address, and sue you.

Granted, I do understand that from the perspective of a western entrepreneur trying to do business in China it seems to be a lawless space, especially if you've been burnt by fake products from Alibaba etc..

Importers would likely get their shipments seized. It's not illegal for manufacturers to export their goods out of China, but US customs doesn't look too highly on importing goods that contravene on registered US IP.

Small time shipments are unlikely to be looked at (eg. if someone buys a single electronic ink display off of AliExpress), but someone actually importing many displays for resale would likely eventually get caught.

Nobody in their right mind would invest 100M in a production line that is likely to be shut down.

Considering that you can buy 5$-20$ E ink panels on Alixpress today, I would guess those manufacturers do ignore western patents.

I think there are already some which do --- we just don't hear about them much because they tend to be fairly anonymous (for good reason).

I remember reading about "fake" Kindle replacement displays showing up on eBay a while ago, not as good as the real thing in terms of image quality etc. but certainly usable, so someone is clearly making them...