I think the disclosure part used to be more important in the past when progress was slow, but today the twenty years given in return is an eternity to block other development for, as technology just keeps compounding on itself. FDM 3D printers which are arguably an indispensable tool for all kinds of research were blocked this way from 1988 to 2008. Maybe Stratasys would've hoarded the design and kept it secret until they could perfect it, maybe the processing power wasn't there yet... or maybe we could've had low cost 3D printers in the fucking 90s and actual flying cars or something by now with how much progress that would've enabled. But I digress...
