> Progress relies on reverse engineering and teardowns.
Progress has always relied on reverse engineering and teardowns. (Or independent reinvention.) You don't learn how anything really works be reading the patents, which tend to be deliberately obfuscated if not outright misleading. Anyone working in the industry will be instructed not to read patents anyway for fear of a willful infringement claim and trebled damages. Only in very rare cases can anything of notable value be maintained as a closely-held trade secret for longer than the duration of a patent.
Progress has always relied on reverse engineering and teardowns. (Or independent reinvention.) You don't learn how anything really works be reading the patents, which tend to be deliberately obfuscated if not outright misleading. Anyone working in the industry will be instructed not to read patents anyway for fear of a willful infringement claim and trebled damages. Only in very rare cases can anything of notable value be maintained as a closely-held trade secret for longer than the duration of a patent.