I agree with your sentiment generally, but the HN community is overwhelmingly against software and business process patents. Therefore, as a matter of balance, when an article appears where patent law might be applied as originally intended I believe that it's responsible to highlight examples of the good use of patents.

Frankly, I think that it's incredibly interesting some people don't think that this new method of producing steel is worthy of patent protection, and is a valuable discussion to have. The reasons for being against software patents usually revolve around software being reducible to math, but here that argument is not applicable.

Given that I want to know more about their reasoning, are you suggesting that in order to have this discussion I need to go to the trouble of writing a blog about this article as it relates to HN's community sentiment, submit it to HN's news feed, and cross my fingers that it makes it to the front page where the people who responded to this article might see it and contribute? That seems unnecessary and overly burdensome.

When is the time then? This is a very good specific example.

Maybe on an article which mentions patents?

Patent law does seem to be one of those "classic flamewar topics" which I doubt anybody has anything especially new to say about. And the fact that somebody invented a new metal doesn't change the terms of the debate or provide anyone with new information, people have been inventing new metals (and things analogous to new metals) for a long time.

Any article about patents.

That was easy.

It's not new material invented here, but process and that's perfectly patentable. Problem is that already published stuff is no longer patentable by anyone.