In Arrival, technology plays a key role in resolving the conflict with the Heptapods. Using the United States’ Heptapod translator, the main characters are able to communicate with the Heptapods, and eventually figure out why the Heptapods arrived on Earth in the first place. The translation technology is a trade secret amongst those working with the Heptapods in the United States. We see in the movie that the United States much like other countries don’t share their technology that they created for communicating with Heptapods. We also never hear of technology being patented, which can make the viewer assume that the technology used in the film is a trade secret. This is very relevant in the movie, as the varying translation technologies used by different governments around the world gave different results when communicating with the Heptapods. If the United States government would let the other governments use their translation tool, it is possible that there would be better results, and more cooperation amongst the world powers.
Another area that intellectual property could be relevant to the film is the 3D visualization tool used by Dr. Donnelly. When trying to decipher the last message left by the Heptapods before floating away from the surface, Dr. Donnelly uses a tool acquired by the United States government to figure out the negative space in the message. It is unsure whether this technology is a trade secret, or a patented technology, but it was used by the United States to figure out that they only had 1/12th of the message. If this technology was public to other governments, it would be a lot easier to figure out the message, and might’ve prevented the Chinese government from nearly starting a war with the Heptapods.
During Arrival, it is clear that the Heptapods would like to encourage the humans to collaborate with each other, as they split up the information into 12 different areas around the world, requiring the humans to communicate in order to understand the Heptapods message. This could be seen as the Heptapods being against the intellectual property laws that we currently have. The viewer also sees a glimpse into the future before Dr. Banks calls General Shang, showing a world where governments from across the world are all friendly, which further proves this could be a reason why the Heptapods arrived.
Although the Heptapods seem to believe removing trade secrets, and being open with other governments is superior to current intellectual property laws, it could be argued that the Heptapods are wrong. An argument some make supporting strong intellectual property is that it stimulates creativity by having inventors, and engineers come up with unique solutions to solve similar problems. A middle ground to both perspectives could be openly sharing intelligence and information, and then working on their own to create their own translation softwares. This is what seemed to take place when the Heptapods first landed, but as governments became paranoid, more and more governments started leaving the group.