I agree with the inventors and owners lasting longer or for a lifetime.
If I invented something who is to say I only get ownership for X amount of years....why not some lifetime royalty check?
Songs continue to make money and after so many decades the original owner gets them back, and can do what they want with them.
It covers the musician or inventor a little bit from the scamming Allen Klein like managers or some wasted 17 yr olds signing their work away.
I know at most big companies you sign away inventor rights and they own anything you invent while working for them.
As for China and Bootleggers they aren't going to pay per law anyway, so it doesn't matter. But all the CLONES, making Neumann clones or NEVE clones, seems odd the Neve family doesn't get something even a small 10% from the "Cloners".
but that's not how it is, so meaningless point.
There are distinctions between Patent, Copyright and Trademark.
A Trademark is a design or phrase that is an identifier, like the Neumann square with their name down the middle, or Coke, or Gibson's open book headstock. They can be indefinitely held as long as you do period registrations. So you can't use Coke or Coca Cola as long as they keep it active. But if you change the design, slightly you can avoid trademark infringement. The problem is that it must be distinctive, and not something that is in common use. Sometimes trademarks become common use, like Kleenex vs tissue. People call all tissues Kleenex, which is an actual brand. Remember the SNL "no Coke, Pepsi" line? You aren't supposed to sell someone Pepsi if they ask for Coke.
A Copyright is for authorship of a document or work of art, such as a song, book, schematic drawings or photos. You can't copyright names, individual words or simple phrases. You can copyright a schematic, but not the circuit itself. It generally lasts the life of the author plus 70 years which covers the person's direct estate.
A Patent is designed to cover an invention which prevents others from making the exact same product. The problem is it must be an exact duplicate. You can patent a circuit, but if someone else changes the values of some parts, or alters the design of the item, then it can avoid infringement. The patent is issued for 20 years to allow the inventor to recuperate costs involved in research and development but not so long as to stifle competition forever.
Drugs are a prime example. HomeRec pharmaceuticals creates a drug that cures baldness and beer belly. The development cost $1M but the drug only costs $2 to make. You sell it for $250 a dose and estimate that for 20 years you'll make $2B/yr. CoolCat pharmaceuticals wants to start making it and sell it for $5 a pop after the patent runs out. In the meantime, Serendipity Drugs Inc, figures out after a year that if you use a different process and add 2 extra carbon atoms to the molecule, it works just as well and costs $1.50 to make. They start making the drug, selling it for $10 a pop because they aren't as greedy as HR Pharm. They make $3B/yr! HR Pharm doesn't meet their predictions, the CEO gets sacked, and the stock plummets to 50 cents a share. Eventually the patent expires, and 20 other companies start making it and sell it for $3 a pill and it becomes a generic drug.
When you work for a company and patent something, the logic is that the company is paying you to do the work, and while your name will be on the patent, the company actually owns invention, and as such, are responsible for filing and defending any patent issues.
