Sure, there are maybe some things which don't need protection. The existence of counter examples doesn't invalidate the general case. Clearly, building reliab

Sure, there are maybe some things which don't need protection. The existence of counter examples doesn't invalidate the general case. Clearly, building reliable rockets is hard and takes a long time to get to profitability. Tesla is losing market share rapidly. > The making progress is the main competitive advantage today. I'm not sure what point you are making here. The competitive advantage is largely happening in a system that uses patents. My point is if you take that away, it is by no means certain that progress would remain a competitive advantage. >that means blocking others which mean slowing down public progress Only if you discount the observation that without some protection, the progress may not happen at all.