Well, von Braun did run a slave camp to build rockets and had people executed for "sabotage" so he kind of deserved to go to jail. Not exactly cut and dry, but I understand the point you're trying to make.
Actually turns out you have to enforce a cease and desist as well, in exactly the same way, suing the party you want to cease and desist. Even if you get a judgement, you have to enforce that, which isn't going to happen in another jurisdiction with a fly by night company literally half way around the world. No matter how strong their IP protection. Trying to enforce something like that is a fool's errand, it simply isn't realistic for small drain cleaner company dude, and anyone like him, they don't do it anywhere even in places that do have strong IP protection, even in the U.S. So the majority of the IP complaint is a red herring, again it has virtually zero financial impact on the U.S. versus the scenario of the U.S. getting everything we could possibly want in that area, balanced against the very real massive losses we're suffering as we speak as we engage in a pyrrhic trade war. Nearly everything in life is an equation, you have to look at both sides. Useful skill, that.
Yeah, the rocket guys basically avoided Nuremberg in exchange for their IP, so it was probably a more than fair trade from their perspective.
Do you agree that the legal regime in Western countries allows cease-and-desists to work reasonably well? Is it worth it to try to export that to the rest of the world?
Would it also have been a "fair trade" according to the US, if the Russians would have done what the Americans did? Probably not. Fair and unfair have very different meanings depending on the actual situation. If Von Braun would have moved to Russia, the US would have had a massive disadvantage against the Russians. It was only fair for the US because they took the advantage. The importance of the persons was determinative. If it would have been simple scientists they would have been trialed.
No, actually I disagree strongly. If you're a small entrepreneur and you patent an easy to copy device like said drain cleaner in the U.S. you can be almost certain that a very close copy will be available everywhere (if it actually turns out to be useful) and it's not going to be worth your while to play whack a mole with them vice out operating and marketing them. They actually teach whole courses at B-school and McKinsey/Bain/BCG earn big bucks coming up with variations on Porter's 5 forces to work around this exact issue. Patents are useful if you're a big corporation in a very narrow set of circumstances like drug development. The idea that some guy can invent a widget in his garage and make millions or even make a sustainable business off the patent is itself a kind of a meme from before internet memes propogated by the "inventors services" industry that lived in the back of comic books and Popular Mechanics. It hasn't been reality for a century if it ever was.
Even large companies are collections of smaller businesses. I think it would still be worth it to try.