> What do you make of the move corporations are making away from the use of patents, towards the use of a hybrid ‘trade secret + patent‘ sandwich? Is there a scenario where it does not stifle innovation?

I take that it's not happening to the extent claimed, and that those claims are largely self-serving propaganda used as justification for a legal land-grab.

Of course patent owners are going to argue that their patents should be valid for fifty thousand years, with the figleaf that it protects 'innovation'. What else would they say? That they'd like IP law tilted in their favour because it would make them more money?