If you want to know what the world would be like without IP: look at the criminal world where they can't easily sue each other for patent and/or copyright violation. Is there software innovation in that world? The virus producers are innovating faster than the anti-virus vendors. Sadly, absence of IP doesn't seem to hold them back. Of course they copy each other like crazy...but what is really interesting is this. Quite the opposite of trade secrecy (which they do have access to) they are open sourcing their code development, giving their secrets away for free in hopes of benefiting from others' innovation.