ABSTRACT
This chapter examines each proposition, closing with a comment on Japan and Korea and a final reflection. Various propositions are cited to support national policies of weak protection for intellectual property. Although expressed in a variety of ways, there are essentially four propositions. Put simply, they are that weak protection, saves the country money, promotes local industry, helps acquire technology and lessens dependency. In the aggregate, the costs of having protection are probably far less over a period of a relatively few years than the opportunity losses implicit in the weak protection option. The suggestion that an industrial base, launched from a landscape of weak protection, will reach higher levels of achievement deserves examination. In a country with effective protection, unauthorized replication of an invention or creative expression and misappropriation of industrial or commercial secrets are illegal activities.
