I'm not convinced you need those published details to begin with, especially to the degree to justify the enormous legal apparatus necessary to perpetuate the p

I'm not convinced you need those published details to begin with, especially to the degree to justify the enormous legal apparatus necessary to perpetuate the patent system. Its become much easier to reverse engineer almost any physical good that the original proposition "publish the technical details of your inventions" could just be a future act of good faith and less a legal requirement for a government granted monopoly on the invention. Probably the best example is Coke - theres a popularized meme of the formula being a trade secret (and thus not patented) but the actual drink has been reverse engineered at least once a decade as a publicity stunt for most of the last century. Turns out the value in Coke is in its trademark, not in its formula. That applies to almost every context most people formulate when trying to justify the continued patent regime we have in place.