[justinclift]

Good luck with that. :(

Rent seeking behaviour is so deeply entrenched in US-led business culture, that any time potential advances are figured out they are viewed through the lens of "can we patent this?".

If the answer is "No", then funds for developing that potential advance - eg concept dev, prototyping, potential field testing - just don't exist.

It's not about being able to improve manufacturing. It's become "what's the greatest ROI on spending these dollars? Can we lock in a monopoly around it somehow too?".

While that short sighted foot gun approach remains prevalent, "fixing" the advanced manufacturing problem is going to proceed pretty damn slowly.

Outright abolishing all patents might get things going in the right direction, but the heart attacks that would cause in business circles makes that impractical. ;)