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Funny, i would have figured it was the other way round. The nations that ignore patents, and perhaps also copyright, are the ones that bloom the fastest. Best

Funny, i would have figured it was the other way round. The nations that ignore patents, and perhaps also copyright, are the ones that bloom the fastest. Best i recall the steam engine saw rapid improvements only after the Watts patent(s) ran out. And in a different example, Smith and Wesson sat on refinements for the Colt revolver for 20 years.

neltnerb 9y ago
Developing economies with outside technologies they can copy should do better by ignoring patents, while economies at the bleeding edge should encourage more invention and disclosure through having them respected. Didn't the US ignore patents when it was England that was the superpower? I wasn't there, but: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130228/01324622146/yes-us-industrial-revolution-was-built-piracy-fraud.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130228/01324622146/yes-u... If you can get all the advantages of well-documented and reduced-to-practice inventions disclosed publicly without much disadvantage from your own citizens failing to disclose their own inventions, then ignoring patents seems like a great idea. This isn't to say that I think the US patent system actually works, I think it's all a terrifically counterproductive mess 95% of the time. But there's historical evidence that whether your country benefits from patent adherence depends on how advanced your economy is relative to others. Once China starts generating lots of good new inventions, now that they're bleeding-edge-adjacent, they're going to see increasing value in enforcing IP rights. It will protect their industry from competing with infringing imports from other countries with lower manufacturing costs, same as here, which is a bigger deal as their domestic consumption increases.
neltnerb 9y ago
Actually, perhaps worth noting that the parent comment is talking about a correlation between robust economic growth and patent enforcement. The causality could be reversed -- once economic growth is large enough that the country is at the bleeding edge of technology, then it cares about enforcing patents because it's lobbied to by its companies.
Nomentatus 9y ago
Nations have opted to ignore IP. For example, Sweden didn't respect copyright in the nineteeth century, so anybody could print Ibsen's plays. Or print them with different endings - including a quite popular version of "A Doll's House" with a happy ending where she returns and apologizes instead of leaving her husband! Eventually, Sweden decided it was losing out economically (Ibsen had moved to Italy or something by then) and decided IP was a good thing.

neltnerb 9y ago

Developing economies with outside technologies they can copy should do better by ignoring patents, while economies at the bleeding edge should encourage more invention and disclosure through having them respected. Didn't the US ignore patents when it was England that was the superpower? I wasn't there, but: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130228/01324622146/yes-us-industrial-revolution-was-built-piracy-fraud.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130228/01324622146/yes-u... If you can get all the advantages of well-documented and reduced-to-practice inventions disclosed publicly without much disadvantage from your own citizens failing to disclose their own inventions, then ignoring patents seems like a great idea. This isn't to say that I think the US patent system actually works, I think it's all a terrifically counterproductive mess 95% of the time. But there's historical evidence that whether your country benefits from patent adherence depends on how advanced your economy is relative to others. Once China starts generating lots of good new inventions, now that they're bleeding-edge-adjacent, they're going to see increasing value in enforcing IP rights. It will protect their industry from competing with infringing imports from other countries with lower manufacturing costs, same as here, which is a bigger deal as their domestic consumption increases.

neltnerb 9y ago

Actually, perhaps worth noting that the parent comment is talking about a correlation between robust economic growth and patent enforcement. The causality could be reversed -- once economic growth is large enough that the country is at the bleeding edge of technology, then it cares about enforcing patents because it's lobbied to by its companies.

Nomentatus 9y ago

Nations have opted to ignore IP. For example, Sweden didn't respect copyright in the nineteeth century, so anybody could print Ibsen's plays. Or print them with different endings - including a quite popular version of "A Doll's House" with a happy ending where she returns and apologizes instead of leaving her husband! Eventually, Sweden decided it was losing out economically (Ibsen had moved to Italy or something by then) and decided IP was a good thing.