This is one of the defensive reason’s MAIDSAFE was looking at patents IMHO. His silence on the subject makes me think along the lines of lowry_jim. I remember he did announce this on Max Keiser a couple years ago before I heard of MAIDSAFE. I wonder if he has been aware of MAIDSAFE all the while.
Hopefully he will play ball with Maidsafe where their projects overlap. He certainly did with bitcoin, buying unknowably large quantities of it back at the $2-$5 level post $30 2011 peak, which is when he started mentioning it publicly. I would hope that he does the same with MAIDSAFE, accumulating the deflationary currency, and this meganet could just be a branded implementation. But with his history of business acumen, fundraising ability, coding team leadership, etc. He seems to need us less than we need him.