The reality is that often, neither the patents or the processes are available for licensing or through an acquisition and merger. Trade secrets and IP are used

The reality is that often, neither the patents or the processes are available for licensing or through an acquisition and merger. Trade secrets and IP are used adversarialy, to limit competition and often times governments are deeply involved, vetoing against any technology transfer that could hurt national competitiveness. That makes sense for a nation but hurts the technological progress of the world. So we are in effect, back to the pre-intelectual-property world. The moral connotations of IP theft hardly apply.