Patent application proceedings are confidential, so that trade secret protection can be obtained if a patent is not granted. Copyrights are for the lifetime of the individual plus 50 years or, in the case of corporations, 75-100 years. Facts about algorithms Algorithms are typically designed and developed in a highly decentralized manner by single individuals or small groups working together. This requires no special equipment, few resources, and little cost. The number of people involved is also quite large compared to the needs of the marketplace.
Independent rediscovery is a commonly occurring phenomenon.
There is a long and distinguished history of public disclosure by developers of mathematical algorithms via the usual and widely-accepted channels of publication in scientific journals and talks at professional meetings. These disclosures include the theoretical underpinnings of the method, implementation details, computational results, and case studies of results on applied problems. Of course, a larger group of people may be involved in building the package around the optimization software to handle the user interface, data processing, etc. Also, others may be involved to handle functions like marketing, distribution, and maintenance. Competition in the marketplace has been traditionally based on the performance of particular implementations and features provided by particular software products.