Man, I hate this argument. A secret is a secret because it's not obvious. If something is naturally likely to be invented by the first person who happens to encounter the problem it solves, it's not a "secret."
That seems to have been what happened here. Society does not benefit from granting a government-enforced 20-year monopoly on things like this. In fact, the cost in terms of wasted energy is incalculable. Patents wall off entire areas of R&D in many instances; we literally don't know what they cost us to grant.
Since both gallium doping and PV panels predate this patent application by several decades I think that it is incredibly ignorant to think that this was obvious. Like a magic trick, once you know the secret it appears obvious, but until someone shows you or tells you how it works you have no chance of figuring it out. This whole 'anyone would have eventually figured it out' argument is the equivalent of saying 'draw the rest of the damn owl'; if it could have been done as easily as you suggest then it would have been done earlier.
Gallium (as GaAs) was being used in solar cells in the mid 60s. A quick search finds papers from the late 70s describing different effects of boron and gallium doping of silicon for solar cells to extend the life of satellites (the effect of the patent in question is to extend the working lifetime of panels so that solar radiation does not damage the panel.) So apparently this was so obvious that the first person who happened to encounter it missed it. It was then missed over and over and over again for at least 20 years and possibly 35.
Yeah, definitely something "likely to be invented by the first person who happens to encounter the problem it solves"...
Man, I hate this argument. A secret is a secret because it's not obvious. If something is naturally likely to be invented by the first person who happens to encounter the problem it solves, it's not a "secret."
That seems to have been what happened here. Society does not benefit from granting a government-enforced 20-year monopoly on things like this. In fact, the cost in terms of wasted energy is incalculable. Patents wall off entire areas of R&D in many instances; we literally don't know what they cost us to grant.