What? The entire point of a patent is that it’s public. Things that are secret are called “trade secrets”. My initial thought was the article had gotten confu

What? The entire point of a patent is that it’s public. Things that are secret are called “trade secrets”. My initial thought was the article had gotten confused and the gov was saying “leave this as a trade secret and we’ll compensate you if it gets leaked” But it actually seems that they’re looking at patents as being pure license revenue driven and the compensation would be 20 years of licensing revenue. But that’s not the only reason for parents. They are primarily intended as a way of having a legally enforced monopoly on something. So what happens in this system if you have a patent that gives you a competitive advantage, but another company works out what you’ve done, checks to see if you’ve patented it (which they won’t find), and then implements the technology themselves? Licensing revenue may be significantly less than the benefits of being the only people able to use the tech.