A world patent would be a great idea.

There are other issues with patents. In lodging a patent, the exact details of the process have to be lodged, and open for public display.

This coupled with the fact that there are often patents for very similar products, it is often difficult even for large companies to defend their patents.

For a recent plant we designed with some new techniques, as the innovation could not be determined from the product, we chose to keep the process secret, and shut out the opposition for more than the decade the patent would have afforded.