temporarily (namely until 2025) barring entry of others to whatever market turns out to have been created by this application,
Vaughan, I agree with nearly all that you say about how good it would be if category theory found practical, commercially viable application. The only thing that I don't understand is why you see patenting it as a *good* thing, when (as you say) the purpose of a patent is that is, to *prevent* (in part) commercial application. I can only suppose that this is because patents are one of
the usual protocols of the business world along with many other anti-competitive practices. (Interestingly, software patents are unavailable in much of the world, so I'm not sure that it really makes sense to call them "usual".) I know that if *I* ever come up with a commercially viable application (ha!), I would not wanted to be hobbled by a patent on the relevant mathematics.
--Toby [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]