I can see that working in meatspace but here we're talking about selling an idea on the web - the buyer is very unlikely to be able to track you so they're unlikely to front the money.

Suppose you found a bug, couldn't cash it in with Google because of where you live and so were selling it on. The buyer won't release the funds, would you really give up the goods? Even with an escrow, proving the transfer and performing the transaction with minimum risk seems problematic to me.

No, indeed I wasn't pitching that as a problem with BTC - just in general how can you ensure a secret transaction will go through. You'd need a trusted escrow, a trusted escrow would probably need to have a business address [and other things] for you to trust them ... but that means they'd be registered to handle money in all likelihood and that means records of your transaction that law enforcement could eventually get hold of?