Z:gnu-www-ja-software-patents--98d52f-The ideas that were too small/en

The ideas that were too small or not impressive enough, they would not publish because that would be silly. Now the patent system is supposed to encourage disclosure of ideas. In fact, in the old days, nobody kept the ideas secret. They kept the code secret, it's true. The code, after all, represented the bulk of the work. They would keep the code secret and publish the ideas so that way the employees would get some credit and feel good. After software patents, they still kept the code secret and they patented the ideas, so in fact, disclosure has not been encouraged in any meaningful sense. The same things are kept secret now as what were kept secret before, but the ideas which used to be published so that we could use them are now likely to be patented and off-limits for 20 years.