Big Cos will stop publishing research. Typically today they file a patent before presenting research at conventions, etc.

Gadget manufactuers would also obfuscate or hide design features to make it harder for their inventions to be copied.

Also, I imagine, in the absence of patent protection, trade secret or non-compete laws would be more onerous.

That's already the case, you get pretty much no information from a patent nowadays, it's just legal-speak to be as broad as possible.

That's not really true... I learned a lot from reading Google's TPU patents, for example.

I was thinking of the same, if you go to any R&D center (or even a large manufacturing plant) in China, there is an unreasonable level of security. I've been held up for hours in front office security room because they won't let me go home with my briefcase since it was not registered during check-in, and I can't leave my briefcase with the security due to obvious reasons. Security guys had to escalate to corporate VP of security in HK to let me go.

This is an inevitable trade-off but it will not be like China mainly due to strong sense of distrust in Chinese society.