[_jal]

Mousetraps do not depend on patents to exist. You can still have your mousetrap set, you just can't prevent others from re-deriving the same set.

[Verdex]

The comment you are replying to was using mousetraps as a metaphor. ...at the end of the actual description of what it was talking about. It's an executive summary, not literally talking about mouse traps.

Specifically it was talking about arbitrary problem domains. So ... much more than mousetraps.

[_jal]

What makes you think this was unclear?