That's how it has to be. This is a fairly open system in comparison to what America's founders were objecting against, this really closed guild system where yo

That's how it has to be. This is a fairly open system in comparison to what America's founders were objecting against, this really closed guild system where you only find out how to actually make the contraption work for real when the master [of the craft, who teaches the other journeymen and apprentices] is eg getting death threats on a fluke happenstance and finally telling you...the tricks of the trade. On his deathbed. Other times valuable knowledge was just forgotten. And from that point on, they didn't make them like they used to. That's how you get "limited protection" of the arts and sciences, and patents that were democratic ie I can file on my own for a provisional patent, it's really hard in cases like the Wright Brothers--and some others, and there's crackpots--but at least you didn't need to lobby to get one like in England, where it was an act of Parliament to get an inventor his patent, like James Watt. [Don't have visibility on how the two systems evolved when they broke apart.]