> Please remember that patents were invented as a way to fight trade secrets. Does anything in the early history of patents backs the assertion that they were

> Please remember that patents were invented as a way to fight trade secrets. Does anything in the early history of patents backs the assertion that they were invented for that reason? "Patents might be useful as a way to fight trade secrets", is not the same thing, and could even be true enough; I think "patents were invented because..." might be a back-port of more recent thinking on to a history that does not support it.