'jandrewrogers makes a very cogent point above when he points out that the patent system was put into place precisely to stop all information from being hidden.

'jandrewrogers makes a very cogent point above when he points out that the patent system was put into place precisely to stop all information from being hidden. Without any legal protection, you have to create all sorts of ugly things (like guilds) in order to protect the things you develop. We may have lost some of Shakespeare's plays because he had to be so secretive with his work, since he had no other legal protection from people just copying the stuff and putting on their own plays.