Bare with me before downvoting (or at least write why). At the beginning, patents were very similar to FLOSS. Before patents, blueprints were kept secret, mec

Bare with me before downvoting (or at least write why). At the beginning, patents were very similar to FLOSS. Before patents, blueprints were kept secret, mechanical design was sometimes unnecessarily complex as a form of obfuscation and if someone was able to reverse engineer a product they could copy it without giving attribution. After patents, blueprints were publicly accessible for a reasonable fee, obfuscation was less common, attribution was given and both derivative and new designs were patented as well and therefore accessible. (Sounds like GPL?) Patents would expire in an amount of time that, at the time, was deemed reasonable. This increased competition, knowledge sharing and helped innovation. Today's patents (especially software ones) and copyright have the opposite effect due to high costs, legal risk, absurdly long expiration times and the ability to patent obvious or old ideas.