Licences

Abstract

Multinational corporations have traditionally been noted for their predilection for industrial secrecy and jealously guarded patents.¹ Their attitude to the Socialist countries for a long time was generally marked by hostility and grievance, which was conditioned not only by ideological sentiments but particularly by the Socialist poaching of their technology without permission or appropriate remuneration (see Ch. 1A, p. 3). With the steeply rising costs of research and development (R & D),² and the Socialist export drive and even the dumping of goods produced on the basis of Western technology, their disgust became the more intense.