"Mr Musk has said in the past that Space X does not patent its technologies for fear that they could be stolen by competitors."<p>The USA has forgot it, but this is why we have patents: to stimulate people (and companies) to publicize their technology instead of hiding. The most important function of patents is avoiding science and tech secrets.<p>This is why patents on functionality rather than methods (as are most software patents) are bogus. A patent for "recognize a phone number in a text field" is useless for society because it does not tell us how to accomplish that, just what need to be accomplished.<p>One should be able to patent a specific way of building a lamp. This way, it will not be worth to keep it a secret, as the legal protection is more secure than obscurity. OTOH, Patenting the concept of "a device which illuminates a room with electricity" should not be acceptable.<p>This comment from Musk shows that the patent system in broken both ways: it prevents what should be stimulated (creating new science and tech, even for the same applications) and stimulates what should be prevented (tech secrecy).