| Used to be you could negate a patent by citing prior art. The date of invention, not the date to file was important. Now that has changed. Date of filing is all that is considered. Previously I can show my signed and dated notebooks to prove I was first to invent in a patent challenge. That's no longer the case. If I invent something and don't patent it, Bob might come along and patent it instead. Alternatively I can file it as a trade secret, where there's documentation I invented it, but no public disclosure. So I don't get patent monopoly protection, but I can prove prior art if someone else tries to patent it. This wouldn't work for public research that isn't a secret. Government research filings mean that someone else who didn't invent it won't be able to patent it, or at least as easily. Patent examiners rely quite a bit on earlier patents to determine if something is new. They are not experts in all unpatented but invented research taking place in all fields, so filing this patent helps the PTO block similar patents filed later by other parties. Also, having a patent portfolio of impressive things as the inventor of record, even if some other entity owns the patent, is very useful to your career. It's comparable to having a track record of published papers in prestigious journals. So allowing inventors to document their inventions with patents is likely useful in terms of attracting talent. A government agency, as employer, being owner of the patent, also prevents the inventor from going off and patenting it on his own after no longer working for that agency and thus privatizing the invention. |