Ironically Matias Alps might have had more immediate acceptance had Cherry's patents not expired.
During the MX “heyday” in the 80s and early 90s, there were dozens of reasonable keyswitch choices, including a dozen different Alps-inspired switches of one sort or another, and at least a couple Cherry MX clones.
I really don’t think patents have much to do with the current state of MX or Matias switches.