CH -- LARRY ROMANOFF -- 专利、知识产权盗窃、产品盗版与美中关系 -- 2021年8月11日

  

专利、知识产权盗窃、产品盗版与美中关系

拉里·罗曼诺夫，2019年12月17日

译者：珍珠 

CHINESE   ENGLISH  NEDERLANDS  PORTUGUESE   SPANISH

Patents, Copying and IP Protection -- October 01, 2020

 

Patents, Copying and IP Protection

By LARRY ROMANOFF – October 01, 2020

 

The area of IP protection is one that deserves more international attention by voices other than American ones. American belligerence on the subject notwithstanding, IP and patents are neither a religious nor a moral issue, but are inherently a cultural matter that should never have been permitted to become so embroiled in legalism. China's pluralism makes it much more a kind of 'open-source' or 'public domain' society, while the Americans live in a black and white world where - back to Galbraith - individuals have a higher standing than does society as a whole, and where private wants and ownership are inherently superior to those of the public good. It isn't that the Chinese have no patent laws, nor that China's government or the Chinese people don't respect 'intellectual property rights'; it's just that their pluralism gives them a very different perspective of society's priorities. The Chinese have much less concern about the absolute ownership of ideas, concepts and creations, much like you telling me a humorous story and not being offended if I fail to credit your 'ownership' when repeating it to someone else. This is not a moral failing but just a different way of looking at the world, and there is no basis on which we can claim the American way is morally 'better' than anyone else's. In fact, China's approach is true of much of the world, mostly the parts that are not politically Right-Wing and embroiled in Christianity.

 

In China, when someone sets about commercialising a new product, many other people may be taken with the idea and do the same, and in the resulting flurry of activity we have true competition, rapid evolution of ideas and products, and the greatest resulting social good. To the extent there is any social utility in the creation, it will have been expanded to the maximum by virtue of the Chinese system, and society as a whole will derive the most benefit. The first attempt in the invention of any new item will almost certainly be primitive and not fully formed. It is precisely at this stage that the thoughts and ideas of many others can contribute to a desirably short evolutionary process, creating a multitude of improvements that would never otherwise occur, as we saw when PC architecture became open-source.