The Soviet Union, for all it's faults, had a fair bunch of scientific and technological breakthroughs without relying on IP.

Sure, one person gets rewarded more with the IP system. But at the same time, that breakthrough then can't be built upon by others.

Overall, I think it does more harm than good because of how it monopolizes technologies and ossifies development.

I think free sharing of knowledge will always beat intellectual stinginess.

> fair bunch of scientific and technological breakthroughs

Outside of military technologies they had massively fallen behind the west by the 80s. Without the western tech they licensed or copied they were permanently stuck in the 50s. Even their crappy cars were licensed copies of cheap European cars from the 60s.

When it comes to consumer electronics, vehicles and a bunch of other things they were comically behind. So it’s really not a good example..

> monopolizes technologies and ossifies development.

As bad as it might be empirical evidence shows that historically a superior system has never existed (it might be feasible but everything that was tried underperformed).