IP is largely a tool of oppression. The only ones who can usually practically take advantage of it are incumbents with the financial capital to use the legal system as a weapon against competition. We see case after case of small time creator content being sued for having similar names or similar characters to some large media franchise and them being crushed under the weight of a hundred strong legal team from corporate regardless of what laws are actually applicable or not.

Its government guaranteed monopoly for a reason, and has no real human good. It has economic good, for the companies that use it for extravagant profit (and presently that includes almost all top 10 companies due to the value of software IP). But that economic boon to a few investors in dominators of the global IP market costs all of humanity in spades of lost innovation and rent seeking for culture or technology decades old at this point. Perhaps a few independent artists or authors in the last century would have elected to not produce their masterwork without state monopolies on reproduction and distribution. But billions of dollars change hands every year as corporations buy one another for IP portfolios to sue one another and those small time creators who might have made a masterwork without the looming threat of weaponized corporate IP overshadowing entire industries.

On the other side of the pond China has entire cities dedicated to tinkering, shopcraft, and the sharing of ideas and innovations because they don't have this heavy burden upon all their creative minds. Until now we could not see the flip side, the true costs of maintaining a regime of IP control overshadowing the economic realities of information and the human benefits of its liberation. China's government is a disgusting abomination of human rights abuse and genocide, but its people will hopefully show the working class of the world that there are alternatives to being under the creative boot of the wealthiest men on the planet.

Edison was ruthless about patents and their reach. There are many stories of him sending men to confiscate camera and film from early directors/film makers arguing he owned the content they created with "his" technology. He also personally claimed the patents for many technologies invented at his firm vs listing the actual inventor but keeping ownership and royalties to his firm like today. He was a titan of inventing for sure and fostered an environment where amazing things were created but would probably be considered incredibly toxic in today's world.

That is not "the best tech", that's the best materials to make tech.

Really? How? What? Where? I honestly have no idea in what case / field the Chinese groups are miles ahead of anybody else in terms of genetics research. And I'm doing a PhD in the subject.

There are excellent groups in all countries, but in terms of superior tech on any side, I have not seen any.

There are great companies that facilitate genetics research, but the best tech in that case still is American (Illumina, Affymetrix, 10X genomics).