Is moving back to "trade secrets" really a bad thing?
Is there any evidence that the introduction of patents actually encouraged innovation?
Is there any evidence that the introduction of patents actually encouraged innovation?
If trade secrets cause knowledge to be held from the public and then ultimately lost that would be worse.
Whether that’s still relevant today I don’t know. In cases with massive research R&D like drug discovery they still seem really important.
In that case a trade secret wouldn’t be enough to justify up front investment if the drug can be copied and sold as a generic for cheap along side it.
Even with a patent system, if your innovation is not easily reverse-engineered then you have no reason to patent it. If you invention is easily reverse-engineered, then the knowledge becomes public effectively as soon as you release your innovation, and that is when a patent is most useful.