Know-how as a product-creation, exploitation and national benefit

Alongside engineering business based on trade in physical objects, there is also significant international business based on abstracted technological knowledge-disembodied technology as it is sometimes called. An indication of its value is that this trade exceeds the total of all international passenger fares. Even more significant is the basis that it provides for trade in derived products. Moreover, these products tend to be in areas of high technology, often opening the way to strengthened, or new, market grasp, and providing opportunities to increase added value. Here, the author describes how technical information and know-how generally are moving from being merely a necessary ingredient towards dominating the whole strength and control of much of industry