Code Obfuscation for Patent and Court Filings

Obfuscation for patent filings? A wet dream of the intellectual "property" lobby. Get the monopoly on idea! Now even without actually disclosing it!

Wasn't part of the benefit of this patent thing the fact that once the patent has expired the whole society can use the previously patented innovation for the greater good of all its members?

Somewhat clever solution to an "evil" problem...

Does Adobe have a patent on that obfuscation process for patents?

For a moment there I thought this is an April Fool's joke — but… you just can't make that stuff up.

I think that they mean copyright registrations, not patent applications:

http://www.copyright.gov/eco/help-deposit.html

"In any copy option where portions of the code are blocked out, the blocked-out portions must be proportionately less than the material remaining."

Though most people I know just use the option to submit object code, since (1) the object code is usually available anyway to anyone who buys the software and (2) since you only have to submit about 50 pages of object code, you're not giving much away anyway.

I would be very surprised if simple diagonal bars are sufficient to prevent a good programmer from reconstructing the code. Has anybody here tried it?