5 ms·
technically, trade secrets are roughly the opposite of patents. Trade secrets are "tell no one, and no one can use it cause they don't know about it", whereas
by Vendan 9y ago
technically, trade secrets are roughly the opposite of patents. Trade secrets are "tell no one, and no one can use it cause they don't know about it", whereas patents are "tell everyone, and the government will make sure no one can use it for a while", with the advantage of patents being that a) the public will be able to use it once your patent term is up, while b) the government becomes the enforcer, rather then your ability to keep the secret. Monopolies are largely recognized as a potential negative, but in this case, patents provide a way to encourage publicizing knowledge. Without patents, companies would attempt to keep everything a secret, arguably a negative to society.
- have_faith 9y agoThe idea of publicising knowledge and then saying 'it's illegal to do anything with this knowledge' feels intuitively wrong but I can't explain succinctly why. 20 years also seems too long as well but again, hard to explain why. I understand that monopolies are wrong, but so is teaching a man to fish and telling him he can't make a rod from a known good design for 20 years.
- Vendan 9y agoit's a tradeoff. Which is better, saying "here's how to make a better fishing rod, but I get to be the only one to make it for 20 years" or "I know how to make a better fishing rod, but I'm not going to tell anyone else, this knowledge may be lost at any point, and I'm going to be the only one making them for the next 50 years."