When you develop your own USB product you probably do not want to pay 2000$ for a Vendor ID. Why would you need a VID ? Each USB product needs a unique VID and PID number. Since the VID is a LONG(4 bytes) there are billions of possible numbers. You can simply create a number yourself : the change the number is a real VID is smaller then you win the lottery.
Each of your unique products need a unique PID. This is also a LONG(4 bytes).
Another option is to buy a PID from MCS. Together with the VID you will have a unique combination. MCS has sold PID's since 2005. When MCS purchased the VID, there was NO INFORMATION about the usage of the VID-PID. USB-IF was only focused to get a payment. There were no rules or conditions or a contract.
That changed in June 2009 when USB-ORG wrote an email that it was not permitted to sell VID or PID. MCS pointed out that in The Netherlands you can not enforce or change rules AFTER a product/service is sold. So we continued as usual. In reaction USB-ORG offered our money back but that would mean existing customers would not have a valid PID anymore. So we got some more letters and finally USB-ORG wrote a letter that they revoked our VID.
Of course our VID can not be re-used by USB-ORG. This means that our VID will still be unique.
If you want to produce a USB device that need to be tested/verified by USB-ORG you need your own VID. If you only need a real unique VID & PID combination, you can still use ours. So what we offer is a unique VID & PID combination.
