Agreed. I prefer trade secret to publishing for patent protection.... because of the internet and global competition.
But I do believe the key is just to stop exporting the technology period. If you hire a toll manufacturer half a planet away, you can’t expect him to have the employer loyalty that a worker here in the USA used to have.
And I’m not sure we even have it HERE anymore.
An employee can’t abuse information that he doesn’t have.
Especially for tech that is really only valuable in the short term as things progress at ever increasing rates.
I agree that the lack/decline of vertical integration heavily contributes to the “problem”