About encouraging growth or not. I'm not sure, it would be interesting to see what would happen without patents. However, I'm reasonably sure scientific startup

About encouraging growth or not. I'm not sure, it would be interesting to see what would happen without patents. However, I'm reasonably sure scientific startups wouldn't get VC funding as easily. Don't get me wrong, it's totally possible that this is a good thing, and it might make it easier for companies to bootstrap if they don't need to compete with VC funded startups. But it's a very different model than we have now. But...I don't think it's obvious that patents don't encourage growth. It's possible that they do. They do encourage disclosure to an extent (I've learned a lot reading patents). Without patents, you might find companies relying on trade secrets more. Do you trust the patent examiners to set the validity period? I don't particularly to be honest...