Research and development to invent a "better mousetrap", "widget" or whatever you want to call a product, is not cheap. Why should US companies invest money in R&D, bring a new, improved product to market, and then another foreign company gets a hold of one, reverse engineers it, copies it and undercuts the US company, and steals the market along with the profit, why should a US company bother? What is in it for the genius that actually invents a better product, if their idea is stolen from them, along with the profit from it? No, NOT enforcing patents and copyrights is what stifles innovation. If people cannot profit from their efforts, then they will simply stop inventing, innovating, and producing. Capitalism works, and is the only system that creates real wealth, and can lift people out of poverty.