&gt; everything someone creates is always built upon the knowledge of others<p>Right. Sure. These are the kinds of beliefs often verbalized by people who never risked their own time and money to solve hard problems and had to face the risk and reality of the Chinese (or others) stealing the results of that effort.<p>Here&#x27;s the difference, the &quot;R&quot; in &quot;R&amp;D&quot; is the most expensive part.  The &quot;D&quot; is cheap.  By stealing they get the &quot;R&quot; for free and can afford devastating predatory techniques to own the market.<p>We devoted ten years and millions of dollars to solving a very hard problem.  I decided we would keep all of it a trade secret.<p>Why?<p>Because, that was the only way to make &quot;D&quot; very expensive.  Stealing something when the cost is just as high as having to develop it often scares away a lot of thieves.<p>It&#x27;s one thing if you are developing a new set of headphones that don&#x27;t really have much in the way of technical innovation.  It&#x27;s quite another thing when you are solving a hard problem (which can be risky, very expensive and require a long and constant effort).