IP has many many flaws, have to disagree with you on the r&d though. That simply costs upfront money and we don't do a lot of it anymore anyways.

To some degree companies don't even patent their stuff, so that they don't have to publish the inner workings for their competitors. This is especially a problem with china since they pretty notoriously don't give a damn about patents and just copy it anyway. Your Shenzhen example makes no sense to me.

There is enough about ip to dislike anyways:

• It is mainly used as a way to sue each other in the corporate world. This is why they patent everything usually.

• Patents don't even really have to explain how the technique works (or if it really works) in much detail.

• there is little to no recourse if the patent office does not want to grant your patent. On the other hand if they feel like it, they can grant complete shit.

• patents are prohibitively expensive for private people, in granting and upkeep.