Eink is innovative. That doesn't mean patents reward innovation. As others have said, they're chasing a monopoly on these types of displays, aided by their use

Eink is innovative. That doesn't mean patents reward innovation. As others have said, they're chasing a monopoly on these types of displays, aided by their use of patents. That's not something we should be encouraging. The point of patents was to give a limited window for the inventor of a thing to exclusively capitalise on the thing, in return for making the details of the thing public so that others could in turn expand and improve on the thing. This is not what's happening here.