Certainly, if only one company made use of the extra nonce space, they would have an advantage. But think of it this way, if some newer ASIC optimization comes up, would you rather have a non-ASICBoosted hash rate to defend with or an ASICBoosted hash rate? Certainly, the latter, being higher will secure the Bitcoin network better against newer optimizations.

 

Is that patented in any jurisdiction, all jurisdictions or only certain jurisdictions? Would a patent granted for SHA256 in Swaziland be sufficient for Bitcoin to change the Proof of Work algorithm? This is a very subjective judgment based on quasi-legality and I don't think that's a road that Bitcoin should go down.

Certainly, it would be better if the patent for ASICBoost were open-sourced, but the legality of such-and-such thing in such-and-such jurisdiction should not affect Bitcoin policy as that in itself introduces significant risk to the network. A sufficiently authoritarian government can then grant a monopoly for various algorithms in their country and negatively impact Bitcoin.

Indeed, there are already many individuals that disobey the laws of their country to help the Bitcoin network run. I would expect the same with patents. Should there come a time when a patent or some other legal maneuvering gives one network actor a large advantage to the detriment of the network, I believe that Bitcoin will handle that in the specific case.

In the meantime, I believe such changes increase the odds of Segwit actually being accepted and activated as per BIP-141.