When someone loses a patent suit without a finding of willful infringement, none of your three points apply. The 'teachings' of the patent clearly weren't involved in the majority of instances of patent infringement. Almost invariably the infringer had no clue they were infringing.
By filing a patent, you're telling the world how to do something (allegedly) new. In 20 years, (or longer/shorter, depending on the country) everyone is freely able to use the idea.
If it's a good idea, someone else -- perhaps the very next person who confronts the same problem -- will almost certainly reinvent it independently. The idea of paying monopoly rents on ideas should make no sense to anyone but a lawyer.
> If it's a good idea, someone else -- perhaps the very next person who confronts the same problem -- will almost certainly reinvent it independently.
It's not reasonable to assume that discovering the same solution to a particular problem is inevitable for everyone.
> The idea of paying monopoly rents on ideas should make no sense to anyone but a lawyer.
That wasn't my point. After the patent expires, the knowledge is available to everyone. If it's held as a trade secret, then it's possible that the knowledge is never released to the public.
If it's held as a trade secret, then it's possible that the knowledge is never released to the public.
However, to "promote the progress of science and the useful arts," as the Constitution states, it's necessary to demonstrate both that patents serve as a widespread source of inspiration and teaching (which they don't do very often, as demonstrated by the relative rarity of willful-infringement awards), and that trade secrets actually do keep advances from becoming more widely available. This is hard to show, at best.
Nobody refrains from producing a touchscreen phone with a swipe-to-unlock feature because they can't figure out how... they refrain because Apple is allowed to financially destroy anyone who tries. Most patents work the same way, in that they keep people from being able to use techniques that might have been obscure and irrelevant at one time but are now obvious, no thanks to the patent itself.
By filing a patent, you're telling the world how to do something (allegedly) new. In 20 years, (or longer/shorter, depending on the country) everyone is freely able to use the idea.
If it's a good idea, someone else -- perhaps the very next person who confronts the same problem -- will almost certainly reinvent it independently. The idea of paying monopoly rents on ideas should make no sense to anyone but a lawyer.