Yeah, but it does seem like interesting tech that was kept under wraps gets a comeback tour once patent protections run out. Consumer 3D printing is an interes

Yeah, but it does seem like interesting tech that was kept under wraps gets a comeback tour once patent protections run out. Consumer 3D printing is an interesting case, because the wealth of extrusion deposition products came after the patents ran out. Same thing now with interesting developments in SLS. Patent runs out, some enthusiasts rig up their own, exchange knowledge over the web, and turn industrial technology into open hardware products. I think the thing here is that companies owning these patents just never thought about the consumer and hobbyist markets. But their patents prevented people selling and innovating in these spaces, thus letting these markets lie fallow. What happens to markets when the legal monopoly stops selling? Now consumer electronics is a field where there's a lot of motion. But imagine the Smartphone(tm) was patented, and the owner of the patent decided to do industrial PDAs instead and abandon the consumer market. They still prevent others from selling to the consumer market, even they don't loose anything from that except some vacuous "potential revenue". Trademarks elapse when they're not used, and names can be used in different markets when there's no chance of confusion (Nissan Motors vs. Nissan Computers). Patents (outside of I think 2 renewal dates) don't quite work that way. The question is, do they prevent technology from jumping into different markets by virtue of their broadness?