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Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

There's a rather surprising attitude in this discussion that the IP belongs to a country (e.g. "Allowing non-citizens to get access to the IP should be illegal."), as if it were some sort of nationalised asset in common ownership. It's a privately owned asset for private benefit. It's not a form of property that pays property tax.

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Keeping IP within the borders of a country, or within a group of countries with mutual patent agreements, is certainly in the interests of the patent holder. IP is only meaningful if enforced. So, containing IP within the countries that have agreed to respect the patent is a rational part of the institution of patents.

Yes and no. Nothing happens in a vacuum. If person X develops something that they could not have developed without certain institutional and social and physical infrastructure around them then it’s by no means as clear cut.

For example I think most people in the UK would say if the taxpayer has directly or indirectly underwritten something then it’s not unreasonable for a portion of the profit on that thing to be taxed and spend on the NHS, roads, education, whatever the inventor leveraged and benefitted from along the way. That’s not to say that the inventor can’t or shouldn’t get rich themselves, but it is only fair that they give something back.