>The alternative is a slowdown in research and development since now the research you paid millions for in payroll and time can now be copied by your competitor

>The alternative is a slowdown in research and development since now the research you paid millions for in payroll and time can now be copied by your competitor with one or two engineers. I'm not going to argue regarding the merit of IP laws, but most analysis indicates that market players ignore most intellectual property, and that replication costs for technology are roughly 60-70% of the cost of the initial research. So you spend a bit more, but end up with a first mover advantage; in network-effect or capital intensive industries, these normally end up being determinative of overall success. But layer that on with other R&D incentives placed in the market. Canadian SR&ED credits subsidize research costs by 15-35%, for instance, so the total delta between first mover and copy-cat implementations drops further. The assumption that IP laws actually increase R&D rates is NOT something that is shown by the academic literature.