aren't the useful arts strengthened by legal protection in exchange for continued disclosure of innovation
No, they're not, at least not in software. Nobody reads software patents, for two reasons. First, the majority are either non-novel or written in a way that they are not useful to others. Second, by reading patents you increase the damages in a possible infringement suit since at that point you knowingly infringed.
I'm afraid you misunderstood my point, as I never mentioned software patents at all. The iPhone is a synthesis of prior research that (in 2007) encompasses advances in both hardware and software. That is the synthesis that I think advances the useful arts, and it's beneficial to society for us to provide a legal framework to protect it.
I think what I said about software patents applies to hardware patents as well, if less so. There is this idea that patents are a compromise: I file a patent, and I get a temporary monopoly on the idea. In exchange, the world gets full disclosure of my idea.
The point I'm making is that the full disclosure is worse than useless. Nobody ever says I wonder how I should implement this? Let's go check some patent filings to see if someone else has figured it out...
No, they're not, at least not in software. Nobody reads software patents, for two reasons. First, the majority are either non-novel or written in a way that they are not useful to others. Second, by reading patents you increase the damages in a possible infringement suit since at that point you knowingly infringed.