In general terms, no, you are wrong.<p>Why?<p>The &quot;R&quot; in &quot;R&amp;D&quot; is the expensive part.  Very expensive.  Ridiculously expensive in some segments (pharmaceuticals).<p>Doing the &quot;D&quot; part once someone paid for the &quot;R&quot; part is easy and cheap.  That&#x27;s what stealing IP is about.  If &quot;R&quot; was easy and inexpensive everyone would do it.  Not so.<p>The problem with saying &quot;Oh, it&#x27;s OK, China will make it better for humanity in the long run&quot; is that killing-off companies that are engaged in heavy &quot;R&quot; creates a situation where all you have in the market is crap or you effectively freeze &quot;R&amp;D&quot; for decades until the equation makes sense again or someone is stupid enough or rich enough to throw money at a problem.<p>Patents and IP protection make a lot of sense when used for real inventions, real &quot;improvements in the art&quot;.  It is when they are used by trolls who make nothing, contribute nothing to society and get in the way of progress that patents turn evil.<p>Stealing legitimate IP is a terrible thing.  The only people who don&#x27;t see it that way are those who have never devoted time, treasure and effort to find a solution for a difficult problem.  That is when, in no uncertain terms, you absolutely get it.<p>In my case, I devoted ten years in a constant effort to develop a technology.  It was extremely difficult work.  I funded all of it and it cost a bundle.  At the end of the process anyone could have just taken the &quot;D&quot; part and gone with it with very little effort in relative terms.  Go through something half as intensive as that and you&#x27;ll understand where I and others are coming from.