Reverse Engineering

disassembly of a device or program in order to discover how it operates

Reverse engineering (RE) is the process of discovering the technological principles of a device or object or system through analysis of its structure, function and operation. It often involves taking something (e.g. a mechanical device, an electronic component, a software program) apart and analyzing its workings in detail, usually to try to make a new device or program that does the same thing without copying anything from the original.
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<system, product, design> The process of analysing an existing system to identify its components and their interrelationships and create representations of the system in another form or at a higher level of abstraction. Reverse engineering is usually undertaken in order to redesign the system for better maintainability or to produce a copy of a system without access to the design from which it was originally produced.
For example, one might take the executable code of a computer program, run it to study how it behaved with different input and then attempt to write a program oneself which behaved identically (or better). An integrated circuit might also be reverse engineered by an unscrupulous company wishing to make unlicensed copies of a popular chip.
(1995-10-06)

taking apart a competitor's product to understand how it is made; then attempting to make it better; used in research.