” I think one has to really enforce them or people will simply ignore the patents.”
Edison learned that the hard way and stopped applying for patents once he could finance his inventions in house
“Edison learned that the hard way and stopped applying for patents once he could finance his inventions in house”
Yes, but he REALLY learned the lesson and started cannibalizing other people’s patents, while using his financial muscle to protect himself legally. Basically, he became the Bill Gates of his day. He even did the same thing in the motion picture industry, outright stealing other people’s copyrighted films and selling them himself, without paying a cent to the creators.