[ndriscoll]

Stop legally protecting trade secrets then. Why would we have a system that simultaneously grants a limited benefit for sharing information while granting unlimited protection for not sharing? This obviously creates an incentive to only patent things you expect others will soon figure out anyway, which means the patent only harms society.

Make the incentive "if I don't share my information in exchange for a patent, any of my engineers could leave for a competitor and share all of my information tomorrow anyway." You take the offer society gives, or you get nothing.