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What a sad fucking world. I like what China does in the regard to patents. That is exactly what patents deserve.
by ixaxaar 2y ago
What a sad fucking world.
I like what China does in the regard to patents. That is exactly what patents deserve.
- levocardia 2y ago...steal them from the Americans?
- immibis 2y agoYou can't "steal" what wasn't valid property to begin with - even if the law likes to pretend it is valid property.
- osigurdson 2y agoI don't think the world is a net better place with no IP or copyright laws.
- bmacho 2y agoI do think the world is a net worse place with IP and copyright laws.
- emptiestplace 2y agoA better world wouldn't need them, but yeah, you're right.
- cute_boi 2y agoI would have agreed if only nobel difficult to find things were patented.
- portaouflop 2y agoWe won’t know until we try it out.
- sam_lowry_ 2y agoWe do, tangentially. IP laws are enforce differently across the world and across timeperiods, and the differences make for wonderful experiments. Think of pop music expansion in the Napster era as an example.
- jajko 2y agoYet successful pop artists are drowning in money. I have really hard time having sympathy with massively multi-millionaires like Metallica bashing people ripping their stuff. Even in countries with stronger IP, unknown artists are struggling. So restrictions are hardly an efficient solution
- pxmpxm 2y agoPublic ownership of capital assets has been tried, and tried, and tried... with the same results. You can pretend to ignore the idea originally coined by Aristotle, but you can't will it into reality.
- thayne 2y agoThere is a huge difference between all capital assets being public, and not considering ideas to be a capital asset.
- renewiltord 2y agoPerhaps the Chinese industrialists are rewarding the IP holders the same way video gamers do: with exposure. And after all, we’ve been informed many times: information wants to be free. And we’ve been reminded as well: if they weren’t going to pay in the first place this isn’t revenue lost.
- userbinator 2y agoIt'll be a better place when IP and copyright laws have reasonable term limits.
- marcosdumay 2y agoThere may be a net benefit from some class of patents, but that's very far from clear. Drugs and chemical processes are the most obvious candidates. And there's some heavy empirical evidence against the later.
- golergka 2y agoWhen you don't defend something like a property, profit goes out of building it. And that's the opposite of what we want to do in a capitalist society. Building intellectual property is a positive-sum thing. It makes humanity better. This is something we want to reward, make profitable.
- PittleyDunkin 2y agoNonsense, it's anti-competitive. It works against the theoretical benefits of the private economy.
- bboygravity 2y agoMaintaining monopolies through artificially raising the barier to entry for their competition (patents) is the exact opposite of capitalism.
- stoperaticless 2y agoOpposite of free market. Capitalism = private ownership and profit from ownership.
- faggotbreath 2y ago[dead]
- derektank 2y agoWhat defines what is and is not "valid" property? The entire concept of property itself only exists because it's a useful fiction. Prehistoric hunter gatherer societies might have had a loose sense of clan ownership over e.g. hunting grounds but the idea that you could parcel up an acre of land and own it would likely have seemed bizarre. Yet today some people spend their entire waking lives tracking who owns what properties
- vincnetas 2y agolets start that to be stolen, the thing needs to be tangible. and property needs to be a tangible thing. and by stealing, preventing from accessing also counts.
- DangitBobby 2y agoNo, there's no logical reason for that restriction.
- kelseyfrog 2y ago> What defines what is and is not "valid" property? There are several ways to answer this provided it isn't rhetorical. One approach is to examine how society collectively decides what counts as property. These decisions aren’t neutral or universal — they’re shaped by the power and interests of those who benefit most from them. I hope it's clear that there is a contradiction present between: "property is universal" and those who benefit most from property being true are those with the most property. Historically, the ruling class has established what counts as “valid” property by embedding their preferences into law and enforcing them through two major systems: ideology and force. You and I are taught to accept these definitions through societal institutions like schools, media, and legal systems. These institutions present ideas like patents or private property as natural or universal truths, making alternative ways of thinking seem unrealistic or unthinkable. For instance, when people say things like, “Patents protect natural rights,” or “Every other system has failed,” they’re reflecting this conditioning — whether or not they personally benefit from it. The concept of property is enforced through systems of control, like courts, fines, and even imprisonment. If someone challenges the validity of a patent, they stand to face financial penalties or legal repercussions. The idea of “valid” property isn’t just a belief — it’s something actively maintained through both persuasion and coercion. Ultimately, those who gain the most from these systems (like corporations or wealthy individuals) have the power to shape both the ideas we accept and the rules we follow. They turn their interests into societal norms through a feedback loop of belief and enforcement. The system sustains itself by creating the reality it envisions - "hyperstition" is where our collective belief makes something real.
- Grimburger 2y agoMany candles can be lit from one.
- DangitBobby 2y agoNot so good for the people selling matches.
- mattigames 2y agoWhat would be the world if we hadn't "stolen" so many discoveries from China, specifically where would be the USA (gunpowder, print, et al)
- portaouflop 2y agoI would say not dramatically different, since most of these fundamental discoveries were found by multiple people around the world.
- j16sdiz 2y agobullshit. movable type are not used in china until oil based ink and metal casting technology mature in Europe.
- thebeardisred 2y agoI assure you. We waited 25 years after the invention of gunpowder before co-opting it.
- thaumasiotes 2y agoMore like 350 years.
- croes 2y agoThey learned from the best https://www.history.com/news/industrial-revolution-spies-europe https://www.history.com/news/industrial-revolution-spies-eur... Germany did the same with book rights which helped them to become an industrial and scientific powerhouse.
- bboygravity 2y agoThe Netherlands was the last country in Europe to introduce patent law AFTER Philips stole bulb manufacturing technology from Edison (Philips is now a huge patent holder and actively steals ideas from startups to turn them into patents).
- Cumpiler69 2y agoIf you can't innovate, steal.
- arcticbull 2y agoHistory shows us you copy first to build a foundation, refine and then innovate. This was Japan's recent-ish narrative arc too, after all.
- idunnoman1222 2y agoThis is the proverbial standing on the shoulders of Giants, which we all do every day
- thayne 2y agoIf you can't innovate, buy (or steal) someone else's invention, and use a government granted monopoly (i.e. patent) to prevent anyone else from innovating further and making a better version. Maybe patents provide an incentive to be innovative, but they also create a barrier to innovating on top of technology that is protected by patents.
- IncreasePosts 2y agoSome people remembering things and going elsewhere and using what they remember seems a little different from copying of millions of documents and schematics and plans.
- colonCapitalDee 2y agoYep, in 2021 the FBI was opening a new China related investigation every 12 hours. China steals billions of dollars worth of industrial knowledge and secrets from the US every year through industrial espionage.
- dmix 2y agoHow's that going
- dmurray 2y agoBillions a year seems like a great deal for the US, compared to the benefit it gets from trading with China. You'd need to be claiming it's worth trillions a year in order to even consider cracking down on it.
- faggotbreath 2y ago[dead]
- kmeisthax 2y agoNow if only China would share all that stolen knowledge
- hulitu 2y ago> ...steal them from the Americans? ... who stole from the Europeans.
- refurb 2y agoYou mean other countries patents, right? Chinese companies are happy to enforce their own IP rights and Chinese courts will enforce foreign patents in some cases. https://www.reuters.com/technology/chinese-chipmaker-ymtc-sues-micron-alleging-patent-infringement-2023-11-13/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/chinese-chipmaker-ymtc-su... https://www.adhesivesmag.com/articles/101029-medmix-files-patent-infringement-lawsuit-in-china https://www.adhesivesmag.com/articles/101029-medmix-files-pa...
- kergonath 2y agoIt works when you are catching up. Japanese companies used the same strategy post-WWII. And a lot of other countries, Japan is just a striking example as it was so visible and quick. “Made in Japan” went from derogatory to a sign of quality in about a generation. Surprisingly when you are in the lead and others have to catch up, IP protections sound much better.
- vasco 2y agoWhen you are in the lead anything that puts others down is good. That doesn't mean the system needs it to operate. Why would we need a system that protects the country in the lead?
- kergonath 2y agoI am not arguing about morality or justice. I am just saying that it is unlikely to happen, as the countries which value IP protection have the most to lose from abolishing it. The people in these countries might have different feelings but I don’t think this is going to be a deal breaker any time soon either way. Personally, I won’t claim much because I haven’t done any survey. IP protection itself sounds reasonable, but guardrails are needed because the incentives to bullshit are quite strong.
- cma 2y agoThe US industrial revolution was based on it: Samuel "Slater the traitor" memorized designs from a factory he worked at in England and became rich after bringing them to the US.
- dnh44 2y agoThere are possibly also longer term repercussions from abolishing patents in that people or companies will naturally instead protect themselves via keeping trade secrets instead. This will probably result in some inventions being lost to history instead of being on the public record once the patent expires.
- 627467 2y ago
- inglor_cz 2y agoIf history is any clue, China will aggressively enforce its own patents against poorer countries by 2060 or so. Several countries already went through this cycle.