I know that they want to change that, too, but I really hope they don't. Otherwise, the people who didn't think a thing was even worth patenting (or who couldn't afford to patent it) will have their inventions stolen from them.

I will justify the use of "stolen" here by saying it's because they're no longer legally able to use their own idea. Restricting an idea via IP laws is one of the few ways an idea can actually be stolen.

i'm not sure that's true, necessarily. IANAL (yet), but unless I'm mistaken, a patent still has to be novel. So if they had publicly disclosed what they thought had no value... they could invalidate any later patent that tried to make it illegal for them to use their idea.

As for the obvious comeback - no, you shouldn't not make public something which you think has no value. Either patent it or stick it out there to inspire someone with a different vision to your own. Don't hoard without knowing how to execute, especially without believing it's worth executing. As far as I'm concerned if you're doing that you deserve no rights to your 'invention' even if someone then comes along and patents it.

Well, what I've seen has been different: in the JMRI case, they patented the guy's idea and then sued him to stop using it (while infringing upon their copyrights, if memory serves).

Frankly, I wish that independent reinvention were at least weighed against novelty, but I haven't seen that work out in practice very often. Instead, they race to connect the dots once someone makes a new kind of dot available, even though everyone skilled in the art could probably could snap things together like Lego (TM) brand building blocks.

>... a patent still has to be novel.

In theory. Not necessarily in practice.