[gambler]

I would challenge this by asking the following questions:

1. Is it non-obvious enough? 2. Would the patent realistically benefit the inventor? 3. Would the patent benefit the society at large?

1 - Physical devices often require lots of engineering work, prototyping, testing and refinement before they really work. Patents aim to protect your investment of money and time into all that stuff. This is not applicable to pure ideas. Once you thought of something like fountain codes, you instantly know they will work and you even know how. There is no investment to protect.

2 - Just because something is useful doesn't mean people will use it, even for free, and the act of patenting a generic algorithm will certainly drive most potential users away. Not because licensing costs money, but because it's a hassle and a liability.

3 - This was covered in many other posts here. I'll add one thing. The fact that it's just an idea (and a generic one that that) means other bright people who need that idea are likely to come up with it on their own. In that case a patent would be clearly counter-productive for the society. Why should the first 'inventor' of the algorithm has all the rights to it, while the second would have none?