I completely agree. Patents should be contrasted with trade secrets as that is their main "competitor". Is it useful to the general public to be shown the deta

I completely agree. Patents should be contrasted with trade secrets as that is their main "competitor". Is it useful to the general public to be shown the details of a new technology, but have it's use restricted for 20 years? Or is it more useful to prevent blocking of technology but these are going to be kept as trade secrets instead? From my point of view patents are probably harmful here. Having people be inspired and come up with alternative (or rediscover the same) implementations is probably going to lead to much better for the public than actually learning exactly how the original company did it in exchange for 20y of exclusivity (and all of the pain that enforcing the exclusivity brings). Remember that unlike copyright patents are not about encouraging the creation of work or innovation. They are a trade of information to the public for a period of exclusivity. For software that tradeoff seems far to far in the inventors favor.