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Comment by toast_coder | Hacker News Reader

The US, Germany, and Japan are all technology leaders. None of those nations leapfrogged into a developed nation by copying others.

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Funny story, heavy industry in the US was started by a guy who, realizing the British would check his luggage for documents, memorized all the plans and ideas he stole.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Cabot_Lowell

uh...

Japan was practically given a lot of American Technology right after WWII under Robert Demings. In fact, Toyota is partially the way it is today, thanks to the Ford Assembly Line, but they still paved there own means of success.

Germany arguably the same as well, around the same time frame. Can't recall the exact history of what US gave to Germany though, but it was most likely part of the Marshall Plan.

US is copying a lot of methodologies and philosophies from Japan. Any deriative of the Toyota way is in many management philosophies, from scrum, agile development, etc. Germany, much technology is still being shared between both our countries today. Japan is copying a lot of software innovations from America, and vice versa.

Yeah, This American Life had a great podcast about the NUMMI[1] plant that covers this in great depth. Pretty fascinating stuff.

[1] https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015

In addition to what others have said, the Merchandise Marks of Act 1887 was passed in Britain to require all foreign made items to have a country of origin listed. This was mainly so that British consumers could see that something was a cheap German knockoff.

A counterexample: In WW1 German patents were declared invalid in the U.S. The U.S chemical industry basically then copied everything they could from them with the government's blessing.

Can't wait for the 2060 version: "Unlike Brazil or India, China is a technology leader. It didn't copy others."

A counterexample: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater

Being familiar with a machine, and taking that knowledge elsewhere seems qualitatively different from wholesale copying of documents and blueprints.

> He learned of the American interest in developing similar machines, and he was also aware of British laws against exporting the designs. He therefore memorized as much as he could and departed for New York in 1789.

Textile mills at the time were the modern day equivalent of semiconductor foundries. I dare you to try something like that today and see what happens to you.

You're allowed to walk away from a job and retain the knowledge you learned in that job.

Not if what you know is a trade secret, that you have signed an NDA on.

Not when "he was also aware of British laws against exporting the designs".

And semiconductor technology is generally considered a national secret.

This is really nothing different from Anthony Lewandowski and friends.

It would be more like if Uber hired levandowski and he didn't (allegedly) walk away with gigabytes of info and only walked with what was in his own head

Things have changed since then. It's the same data. Your means of recording it has just changed.

Really? I remembered when the Americans accused the Japanese of copying.

This is patently false. Industrial espionage, or just plain-old gifts (To keep the commies out) kickstarted the manufacturing economies of all three of those countries.

Of course, once you become a manufacturing leader, you want to pull the ladder up from under you, in the form of strong IP laws.

The US and Japan most certainly did industrialize by copying from Europe. Ignoring IP whenever it was inconvenient.

Ah yeah, I remember reading about that in my American History textbook! We started the industrial revolution right after we signed the declaration of independence, it was the British who copied us.

There's a difference between copying and outright theft.

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