Sorry. I interpreted tptacek's first line as that he'd known about the patent and what it contained independently for "a little while". (It was a patent after all. Isn't that public information?)

Or was the news not the existence of the patent referenced on the tweet?

I'm absolutely certain that my brain is just fundamentally misreading your first sentence.

The first sentence of your post could be interpreted to mean that you knew about this for "a little while" but decided not to inform the rest of us, in which case I don't think it's that weird to ask "why didn't you tell us?"

It was the same question I had, in good faith, when I read your comment. In fact, it over rode (in my mind) everything else you wrote - I kept asking myself, "Why was he waiting for it to come out? Did he discover it, and not tell other people? Was he wondering whether this existed, but had not found it? Did he have a colleague tell him they were onto something, and he was waiting for them to publish. Has he known all about this the entire time, and was waiting for the other shoe to drop?"

To some degree, that one sentence, by itself at the head of your comment, captured all of my attention.