> A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention.
Patents have always been about "promoting the progress of science and useful arts" by promoting disclosure of inventions. The two are intricately linked. More disclosure = more progress.
Are they? Inventors need to eat and sleep, and that's hard to do if someone else with a higher marketing budget and fewer qualms about lying to make a sale rips off your invention a day after launch day.
For example the situation between AWS and many open source server-side tools. Recently several companies based around open sourced software with auxiliary monetization plans have chosen to abandon open source in favor of more restrictive licenses that prevent cloud providers from re-branding their software and selling it as their own.
> They could be outspent and out marketed by established companies and end up working for them.
Or they could decide inventing isn't worth the hassle and they'd rather be a Dentist or something that pays well.
Or established companies can simply steal their ideas and try to bury them in legal bullshit—like Ford, etc tried to do :
* https://thehustle.co/windshield-wiper-inventor-robert-kearns...
* https://www.autonews.com/article/20081002/ZZZ_SPECIAL/810029...
* https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/how-robert-kea...