Out of all these, processor design (what you say is USA-dominated) seems like the one that involves the smallest amount of capital investment. And is therefore the easiest crown to lose, right?
And that's, in part, why every IC shop I checked in China ran off decade old warezed Cadence EDAs.
Who could've knew that warez market exists even for such rare, pretty much custom made software for which there are less than <100 licensors in the world.
This caused major problems for the WAN between ASML headquarters in Eindhoven and the remote offices in those Asian countries.
The difference is that in the US enough licenses are used to pay for the "average" number of users, while overseas it's zero.
And frankly, if the big EDA tools companies actually fixed and improved their software instead of milking it for decades, legit US clients would care more than they do now.
For those who haven't had the pleasure, most EDA products are like buying a boxed Windows in 2021 and they turn out to actually be Win 3.1 - no exaggeration.
However, companies like Qualcomm and ARM wouldn't be able to exist without a strong global IP law infrastructure, but the former is a juggernaut and the latter is an object of desire.
I agree that Korea has competitive processor designs. Of course, even Samsung uses many Qualcomm SoCs and licenses many Qualcomm patents. If you remove US-developed design IP entirely from the Samsung portfolio, how many Samsung products would be affected? I think many.
They could've easily did that. I myself saw rather new ARM cores being all around Chinese FTPs.
The thing is, just macros, or verilog code alone is near useless without tons of documentation, spoonfeeding by ARM FAEs, and tooling support.
Same goes for ARM. Their entire business is making and licensing designs internationally. That's what they do. That's how they make money.
> The thing is, just macros, or verilog code alone is near useless without tons of documentation, spoonfeeding by ARM FAEs, and tooling support.
Looking at past cases, I think this is an extremely poor characterization of how infringement actually happens. More likely,
(A) customers (or former customers) use licensed technology for which they underpay (or refuse to pay); or
(B) competitors hiring engineers from customers or former customers to compete with the company.