Ever heard of the fashion industry?
People innovate in pursuit of profit, not exclusivity. This is perfectly demonstrated by the fact that almost no inventors wind up owning the patent for the inventions they create. Most patents are owned by the companies that employ those who do the innovating. Yet those engineers and scientists and others keep on working.
Only certain types of economic activities can benefit from patents and the patent system tends to redirect investment into those areas. But that is a distortion of the market. Who is to say what would have been done with those investments if the economy had not been distorted to favor patentable innovations?
“Who is to say what would have been done with those investments if the economy had not been distorted to favor patentable innovations? “
Let’s see.... Alexander Hamilton and the Founders versus the wisdom of SeeSharp...
it’s a tough call. I’ll have to think about it.
‘The English patent system evolved from its early medieval origins into the first modern patent system that recognised intellectual property in order to stimulate invention; this was the crucial legal foundation upon which the Industrial Revolution could emerge and flourish.
‘The Patent and Copyright Clause of the United States Constitution was proposed in 1787 by James Madison and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. In Federalist No. 43, Madison wrote, “The utility of the clause will scarcely be questioned. The copyright of authors has been solemnly adjudged, in Great Britain, to be a right of common law. The right to useful inventions seems with equal reason to belong to the inventors. The public good fully coincides in both cases with the claims of the individuals.”
The first Patent Act of the U.S. Congress was passed on April 10, 1790, titled “An Act to promote the progress of useful Arts.” The first patent was granted on July 31, 1790 to Samuel Hopkins for a method of producing potash.’
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_patent_law