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The US textile industry was built on ignoring UK patents though :)
by nottorp 1y ago
The US textile industry was built on ignoring UK patents though :)
- warkdarrior 1y agoSo one past illegal activity allows future illegal activities?
- permo-w 1y agoprecedent is a real thing, de jure and de facto
- MangoToupe 1y agoNo, but it does make people crying about competition very difficult to sympathize with.
- nottorp 1y agoExactly. All that whining about "intellectual property" is at best funny. Especially since the US patent office is mostly known for allowing anyone to patent anything, even if there is prior art from the Mayan and Roman empires.
- loudmax 1y agoThe 19th century US cotton industry was built on far worse crimes than patent infringement.
- sudobash1 1y agoIndeed, but patent infringement too. Although the Cotton Gin was patented, Eli Whitney famously was unable to enjoy those protections. Imitations sprung up all around.
- kubectl_h 1y agoSimilarly: though William Jarvis wasn't the first American to import Merino sheep, he was the most successful because he was able to utilize an ongoing war in Spain to circumvent around the Merino export ban in the early 1800s and get a ton of them over here, too. He was even a diplomat to Spain and probably knew better, but did it anyway.