[stoperaticless]

How useful are patent records for rebuilding technology?

I imagine that patent is not a recipe, but description used identify infringements.

If goal is only to identify infringements, then I would leave bunch of stuff out of patents. (Later I could fill new patent for same thing just describe those parts that were left out in the first one)

[dnh44]

In theory the patent is supposed to describe everything necessary to reproduce the invention. If something is left out that is critical then there isn't really any invention there and the patent shouldn't be awarded. I understand that in practice some patents are written in such a way to make this difficult.