Re:Other Side of patenting (Score 1)

Well it's more than that. The fundamental principle of the patent, besides granting exclusive rights to an invention for a limited time, is to take a private idea and publish/record it for all time in a publically accessible form. Imagine if all the inventors of the world kept their ideas to themselves. Basically we're sacrificing a short term monopoly on an idea for getting innovation out in the open such that anyone can make or use it after the term is up. In the end, the result is highly beneficial to society.