A friend of mine work in medical drugs research. Secrecy is definitely the norm in this field and they even prefer to keep formula in a safe than publish a pate

A friend of mine work in medical drugs research. Secrecy is definitely the norm in this field and they even prefer to keep formula in a safe than publish a patent, because they think patent system is not protective enough to get they R&D money back. Now that all come down to the same old paradox. The current patent system encourage patent troll and discourage real innovators to publish because they are too easily copied. One alternative is open source, but when huge R&D costs are involved it's maybe not the best idea. I think Apple is currently doing a great mix, they work on some project with OpenSource (WebKit, Swift) were community feedback is important... and they keep innovative R&D technics under secrecy to monetize them.