[dahauns]

This makes sense when the price for discovery itself is very high compared to putting it into use. In many fields (especially IT/software/algorithms), the discovery/invention often isn't the main part of work (especially not when you look at what are the actual claims of many inventions in those fields), but creating a good implementation and/or improving on it.

There's a reason that software and algorithms weren't deemed patentable for a long time (and still aren't in certain jurisdictions - at least on paper).