I understand Teller wants to protect an idea he came up with
Given how much Penn & Teller built their careers on exposing the tricks of other magicians who had guarded their secrets for decades (and getting a lot of stage magicians made at the duo), it's pretty ironic for Teller to now decide he wants government protection for a trick of his.
Disclaimer: esquire.com is not working for me right now so I haven't read the original article yet; I'm basing this on your comment.
They do several tricks where they pretend to reveal what they are doing, revealing how the trick normally works I think, and then proceed to do something that makes it apparent that is not actually what they are doing.
They have a particularly gory version of sawing a woman in half for example. I think it is on youtube somewhere, pretty solid.
But yeah, I don't think you could say that they reveal tricks that "belong" to other magicians. They reveal the basic stuff.
(When Penn & Teller have famously exposed a trick, they've almost always invented a ridiculously poetic method and built the trick around it; by making their art seem more intricate than it is, they force the audience to assume that the rest of their tricks are equally complex. Penn & Teller's exposures are really part of an elaborate con.)
That doesn't carry for me. For example, the famous trapdoor expose is trivial. The complexity is in the song-and-dressing, which most their tricks have.
The Cups and Balls is a classic, and everybody knows, or can easily find out, how it's done. And then they take it and turn that on its head, by doing a routine around "we're going to show you exactly how the trick works, and still amaze you with it". Which is, well, magic.
And in general, a lot of their "exposures" follow that patten. They're much more about artistry and that kind of next-level thing where showing the "secret" doesn't detract from but in fact adds to the effect.
I never got the impression that most magicians cared that much for the actual trick. It's a performance art and some of there 'show the magic trick behind clear plastic' is just as interesting as the actual 'trick'. So, I don't know if this is really about protecting tricks as much as preventing bad imitations.
Given how much Penn & Teller built their careers on exposing the tricks of other magicians who had guarded their secrets for decades (and getting a lot of stage magicians made at the duo), it's pretty ironic for Teller to now decide he wants government protection for a trick of his.
Disclaimer: esquire.com is not working for me right now so I haven't read the original article yet; I'm basing this on your comment.