> in principle serve to share knowledge about how inventions work
Emphasis on "in principle". Most patents - especially software patents - are completely unintelligible. They also tend to describe the system enough that they can sue people that do the same thing, but no-where near enough that you could actually implement it based on the patent.
Emphasis on "in principle". Most patents - especially software patents - are completely unintelligible. They also tend to describe the system enough that they can sue people that do the same thing, but no-where near enough that you could actually implement it based on the patent.