From an electronic technician's point of view (who has come across many sealed circuits) you will not gain a favourable impression of your product if you sell it worldwide.
Consider this: your gadget has worked for years but someone had managed to break a wire coming out of it (or something like that). It COULD be repaired and fixing it would be simple IF ONLY the original wire attachment were accessible. If the item came from overseas, it is perhaps no longer in production and trying to get any repairs affected is often too costly to consider.
You may gather from this that I hate :evil: sealed circuit boards. I also find the practice of grinding off IC numbers childish and counterproductive in the long run. What's wrong with somebody other than yourself wanting to repair the item?
If somebody REALLY wanted to copy the design the'll find ways to do it, there's little you could do to prevent it anyway, if it happens, unless you have access to lawyers and heaps of funds to pay them with.
The best advice I can give you is make the most of the time advantage you have before somebody finds it worthwhile to copy it (you should be flattered if somebody actually does :wink: ).
Having said that, I do realise that sometimes, for reasons of the hostile enviroment the gadget is been used in (underwater, explosion proof, high voltage, on spacecraft, etc, encapsulation IS required but these items are not designed for repair anyway.
Encapsulating something just for the sake of stopping copycats is a waste of time, IMO.
Make it very obvious that it is a non repairable item if you encapsulate it, taking special consideration that any connections / controls to it are bullet proof and outlast the parts inside, so nobody would even consider attempting any repair.
Electronics is such a rapidly changing and developing business that your project has a good chance of being out dated in a short time anyway.
Now, stop being so mysterious and tell us what wonderful circuit you have come up with and where to buy it if we all must have one :lol:
Klaus