> China is also building a huge war chest of IP patents.
My understanding is that China doesn’t care about abusing patents they don’t own. Is this incorrect? Do they value patents only when they hold them and enforce them?
Asking sincerely.
My understanding is that China doesn’t care about abusing patents they don’t own. Is this incorrect? Do they value patents only when they hold them and enforce them?
Asking sincerely.
Live by the sword, die by the sword. It is the West that first turned patents into the weapon for big corps to fuck the rest of the world. Well now they're tasting it themselves
The "west" absolutely has a monolithic IP jurisprudence, rules codified by trade agreements and passed laws[1]. This has harmed open source in the past, such as the multi-decade, recurring issue where folk have the license to make use of the source code, but not the associated trademarks.
1. As evidence, I offer the great mobile patent wars of the 2010's, which played out similarly across multiple countries the suits were filed, except the home-countries where the scales were the scales were thumbed.
This isn’t about protecting knowhow or actually producing anything, but about generating as much legal and financial friction as possible. The difference is that in China it can be semi-state-backed or at least tolerated, so it’s not just a bizarre parasitic business model like in the West but also a geopolitical tactic.
They didn't intentionally or exclusively targeting open source, the "# of patents" are very explicit KPI requirement for tech companies in China. Every team gotta grind patents as much as they can.