"Patents were (narrowly) created to _encourage_ the spread of knowledge" That may have been the language used, but it didn't reflect the reality even of that t

"Patents were (narrowly) created to _encourage_ the spread of knowledge" That may have been the language used, but it didn't reflect the reality even of that time. James Watt had a mate in Westminster, and patents were a novel mechanism for him to stymie competition. It stalled the pace of engine advancement for a couple of decades. This is described in some detail in an early chapter of /Against Intellectual Monopoly/ (Boldrin/Levine, 2010).