This concept breaks down into two distinct categories inherent in the title of this post: Patents Patents are a means of protecting intellectual property from competitive capitalization. Patents work extremely well in an already existing industry. Strategically a company can prevent competition for the time period allocated in the patent. The patent process is beyond the economic reach of most people; requiring $10,000 and up to achieve reasonable protection. Because of this the patent process is restricted somewhat, only achievable by the economically wealthy and the intellectually gifted (Law school is a lot to learn). Frankly I tried to write a patent once and the result were not positive. On a side note this is not the way it should be :( Open Source The most widely known open source project is  Linux. All the source code is freely available making patent protection futile. Consider the open source concept in a newly born industry; one with no competition. Typically new products have their reliability questioned, but the existence of competition reaffirms the general public. As more and more Linux distributions become available the credibility of Linux improves. The success of each individual Linux distribution is tied directly to the success of of Linux itself, therefore it is in everyones best interest to cooperate toward a common goal. Thoughts I have considering two possibilities recently: 1) An already existing industry 2) A newly created industry In an already existing industry patent protection is the proper course of action. Capital resources are easily available, and most likely allocated extensively to intellectual property. This is the corporate way, and it works. But what about an industry that does not yet have a corporate powerhouse? An industry filled with a handful of small to medium sized companies. An industry built on open source information. Is the key to success competition? Will competition reaffirm credibility? Will a diverse availability of professionally manufactured products increase interest?  I assert that competition is the keystone to the creation of a new industry based on open source information.