Thomson Furniture Company Is Struggling to Improve Its Sales

Thomson Furniture Company is struggling to improve its sales.The sales of Branson, a major competitor, are soaring because of the company's well-designed and innovative products.Thomson decides to study Branson's designs in an attempt to understand how it is doing so well.Finally, Thomson creates an improved product that does not infringe on Branson's patents.This type of idea generation is known as:

A) brainstorming.
B) prototyping.
C) reverse engineering.
D) customer research.
E) concept testing.