India is fast turning into one of the world's development powerhouses, and they're getting there by challenging the idea that they should have western-style copyright and patent rules. The US spent its first century as a "pirate nation" that didn't honor foreign copyrights and patents. This marks a decisive moment in Indian history: the US, Europe, and other nations' IT industries are crippled by the need to pay monopoly rents to patent-crooks like Acacia; India's IT companies can get away scott-free. Will be interesting to see hiow this develops. [Boing Boing]