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Comment by chavesn | Hacker News Reader

> You can think to yourself: “ugh, patent trolls are disgusting”. But the protection of intellectual property is what America is built on. Smart people invent things. Then they get to protect the intellectual property on what they invents. Other companies can’t steal[1] that technology.

"Protection of intellectual property is what America is built on?" Hyperbole much?

"Smart people invent things. Then they get to protect [...] what they invents." Oversimplification much?

Not exactly a home-run defense of patents by Mr. Altucher.

[1]: As admitted by the article, there was no "stealing" here anyway.

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> But the protection of intellectual property is what America is built on.

Is it? I recall the story of how the textile industry in America was built upon designs illegally smuggled out of Britain.

Also, the movie, auto, and aviation industries were all hobbled for years under patent lawsuits. It was so bad in the aviation business that development in the US pretty much ground to a standstill and the center for aviation progress switched over to Europe for a decade or two.

Not just that - a young America ignored foreign authors copyright in publishing. Film making took off in Southern California in order to escape the Edison company's protection of its film patents.

Intellectual property protection became important to America once it had leapfrogged other nations by ignoring their rights. Which is what makes the current stance on international intellectual property a little hypocritical, especially when it comes to generic drugs in third world countries.

Indeed--in fact the word 'yankee' as applied to americans long ago, referred to the american ripping off of intellectual property: yankee meant IP pirate. No joke!

I don't think yankee meant pirate. I'm pretty sure it's an old term with the same meaning as 'wanker'.

However, the Yankees turned it around on the British and owned the term. Classic.

Edit: the actual origin of the word is lost in obscurity. There are lots of theories.

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