Bitcoin Q&A: Proprietary Editable Blockchains & Patent Trolls

Keywords/phrases: Proprietary editable blockchains and patent trolls. Patents mainly slow down the commercial companies in the space that are interested in doing proprietary technology. Patent pools as a defense against expensive litigation. They're not going to affect the open-source voluntary-based software that we really care about, because you can't stop that with patents. I've expressed my confusion as to why people are not seeing the desirability of irreversible contractual agreements between parties, which can still allow for refunds and multi-signature consumer protection. Irreversibility is not a bug, it's one of the most useful features. It is a system that encourages autonomy instead of authority. "Editable blockchain," in the passive voice, simply means a blockchain which can be edited, but then there is still the subject question of "by whom" and "under what circumstances"? It is not a useful construct because we already have those, we already have institutional money and authoritarian systems of control and censorship. What we have now with Bitcoin is autonomy and censorship-resistance. Patenting something doesn't mean it's useful or interesting or novel.