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Comment by LordDragonfang

15 hours ago

> if the US wants their patents to be respected, they have to respect the worlds.

The Chinese market is notorious for not respecting patents, though, so clearly that isn't working.

I recall reading 10+ years ago that Chinese economists were calling for stronger IP laws in China to accelerate their technical progress. Maybe the government listened.

This matches the economic literature [1] about the historical development of other industrialized nations as well, including the US. The theory is: when a country is starting to industrialize, they prefer weak IP rights to reduce friction in copying and learning rapidly ("knowledge diffusion".) However, when their industries mature, develop a strong technical base, and start competing by pushing the state of the art through their own inventions, they tend to prefer strong IP rights to protect their investments in R&D.

It is pretty clear China has reached that stage.

[1] There is a lot more out there, but this is what I could find offhand: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jid.3844?ms...