Comment by somerandomqaguy

Patent system?

I know lot of folks on Hacker News hates patents but that was the whole point of them: the patent holder got exclusive rights to the invention for 20 years. But the trade off was that specific details about the invention, how it worked and how it's made were entered openly for anyone to look up. The patent holder would basically benefit it for the majority of his or her life but then after that it was permanently part of the public domain.

AFAIK it was the reason why the patent system was invented, otherwise the best option jealous guarding of trade secrets that ideally (for the secret holder) died with them.