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Comment by randcraw | Hacker News Reader

On a more general note, I wonder how much enforcement of patents will be rendered moot by two trends: 1) the rise of algorithms (which can't be patented) in replacing physical IP, and 2) the rising practice internationally of IP theft, esp in China?

AFAIK, China has paid no price (legally) to date for stealing tech from others and disregarding patents/copyrights. What does that bode for IP enforcement if the #2 economy on Earth largely ignores it? Does this suggest we can expect enforcement of IP protection to fade everywhere someday soon?

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> 1) the rise of algorithms (which can't be patented) in replacing physical IP

You’re assuming there’s an inherent limit to ownership. The rise of software patents themselves are an expansion of the concept of ownership.

If there’s gold in them there hills, why would they go unmined? See “Are Business Method Patents Going to be Second Class Citizens?” for the “everything is ownable and licensable” side of the argument.

https://www.goodwinlaw.com/~/media/Files/Publications/Attorn...

> AFAIK, China has paid no price (legally) to date for stealing tech from others and disregarding patents/copyrights.

If you consider arresting Huawei executives, sanctions against that firm, and having their equipment banned/restricted for many use cases by a number of western governments to be 'no price', then sure, no price has been paid.

We can split hairs as to the steps of the exact chain of causality that has lead us to that point, but I'm sure it was a factor.

Huawei _holds_ lots of patents there. It was sanctioned because US couldn’t compete on market terms, not because of alleged “IP theft” - which used to be a normal practice for US companies (and government; there are quite a few stories of American industrial espionage) until they got ahead.

They are sanctioned because their products are backdoored.

American products and services are also backdoored, yet the EU does not sanction US vendors. It has, however, strongly considered banning Huawei.

If those allegations were true - and even GCHQ admitted it was bullshit - then those backdoors would be demonstrated, like it was the case with Cisco and Juniper.

> Does this suggest we can expect enforcement of IP protection to fade everywhere someday soon?

It could also be the other way around: in order to expand to new markets, Chinese companies will be obliged to comply with patents/copyrights laws. You can see that for instance Tencent and Huawei are AOM members, they can't simply use AV1 without license ...

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