Trade secrets are what patents were designed to protect against. So that current knowledge can be made available to future generations, at the cost of a short term of exclusivity to the one who holds the secret.
I feel the problem is that you can recreate many of the patents being granted today just by taking a quick glance at the implementation. What do future generations have to gain by knowing that one click can finalize a purchase on a website? Knowing what precise measurements of compounds when combined together can cure a disease has a little more merit.
Isn't it funny how most software patents can't be protected by trade secrets?
How many patents were infringed (1) by mistake, or (2) by somebody trying to emulate some behavior or (3) by somebody reading a patent description?
Personaly I've never seen (3) happening. It may sometimes happen when it comes to video codecs or AI, but funny how those domains are strongly linked to math ;)
I feel the problem is that you can recreate many of the patents being granted today just by taking a quick glance at the implementation. What do future generations have to gain by knowing that one click can finalize a purchase on a website? Knowing what precise measurements of compounds when combined together can cure a disease has a little more merit.