In the industrial age, enterprises had to sell a physical product to make a buck. But now that we have entered the information age and acceptance of the idea of intellectual property rights has become widespread, firms have begun to view things as intangible and abstract as technical know-how and business acumen as their most valuable money-making tools.
工業時代，企業要賣商品才有錢賺，但資訊時代來臨，智財權觀念普及後，無形而抽象的技術或營業知識（know-how），開始被企業視為最有價值的生財工具。