I gained the laser. There are lots of ideas in notebooks all over the world that I have zero access to. Their inventors don't know about or use the patent system. They have no incentive to prototype, research, and publish their findings, license them to manufacturing partners, or go through the tens of thousands of steps that the laser went through to become a component that costs pennies, available to everyone in a variety of applications.

Sketches in notebooks don't help me. Inventors going through the patent process do.

It's that simple.

But the guy who got the patent was the guy with the notebook who never showed it to anyone. Then when someone else got it to market he showed the patent office his notebook and then got a lot of money.

Note: We changed to a first to file in part to avoid this issue. But, now someone else can publish or even sell something, then after reading it you can submit a patent using their idea which is arguably far worse.

:)