Members of the media look at a robot system for porotic laparoscopic surgery during a preview of the National Mass Innovation and Entrepreneurship Week in Beijing in October 2018. The US has criticised China for intellectual property theft. Photo: Xinhua
Opinion
Opinion
The US is targeting China for intellectual property theft, but is the fight really worth it?
- While intellectual property protection initially spurs innovation, it can end up hampering it in the long run
- From an ethical point of view, penalising the theft of ideas wrongly presumes that ideas are in short supply and that we can properly define their value
Members of the media look at a robot system for porotic laparoscopic surgery during a preview of the National Mass Innovation and Entrepreneurship Week in Beijing in October 2018. The US has criticised China for intellectual property theft. Photo: Xinhua