I disagree. I don't think giving people a coercive monopoly on doing things similar to them helps innovation. I think it's one of the main barriers to innovation. It prevents iterative improvements and encourages resources to be spent on preventing others from competing instead of making a better next generation product.

I’m going to be that guy. It’s not “the Ukraine”, it’s just “Ukraine”. There’s a significant historical reason why this matters.

Would you care to expand?

I've recently dropped the "the", because I understand some people object to it. Is this because "The Ukraine" referred to a geographical region, while "Ukraine" is the name of a country?

Mostly that. The theory is that using the definite article implies Ukraine is part of some larger region, which is a highly charged political statement. This Wikipedia article has more details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Ukraine#English_defini....

Ah, thanks. Interesting to compare "The Argentine", the abandoning of which usage the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentina explains as a mere fashion change.