It always seems to get deployed as a "The West are the only true innovators" and ignored if its like... The Islamic golden age or whatever. Also like some Arabian merchant couldn't have seen a steam train and gone "Oh, that's a good idea", it required colonialism to get ideas like plumbing etc. all over the world.
Bleh
Copyright and patents function to underdevelop the countries preyed upon by the West.
Even as far back as the Watt steam engine there was such a broad patent that it effectively covered all steam engines apart from the inefficient Newcomen engine. Anyone who made a steam engine could and would be sued for infringing on the patent.
The capitalist West gets to develop itself through innovation and then yanks up the fucking ladder so no one else can follow them without paying exorbitant licensing fees.
Watt actually had to do a weird goofy gear arrangement (sun and planet) because the normal obvious crank was already patented too.
inventions in the fields of steam trains or plumbing fall under patent right, which unlike copyright law is actually "sensible" (if you believe in intellectual property to begin with) in that it only lasts 14 years max (although companies have obviously found ways to circumvent the law in many cases)
I'm actually pretty sure there's a thought of "The Soviets could not have invented the AK-47, they must have stolen it from the Germans" as though there's an everlasting credit on nations for inventing a particular thing etc and that it is impossible that the reds could have invented anything. I'm not talking about laws, but rather which nations get credit for things and what that's used to justify (e.g. Colonialism, current Jingoism in China etc).
By that measure the Germans couldn't have invented the sloped armor of the panther tank without copying the T-34
Punjabis had guns 2000 years ago and the greeks wrote about it
all of history is fake and all european achievements were given to them by aliens (Tesla was the most highly possessed)
