It wasn’t till the late 1700s that patents became form of intellectual property, before that it was a form of granting economic monopoly. Some of these “patents

It wasn’t till the late 1700s that patents became form of intellectual property, before that it was a form of granting economic monopoly. Some of these “patents” were for already existing things, to give the grantee a monopoly over the sale of a particular common item. In addition, patents as we understand them today as a form of intellectual property didn’t coalesce till mid to late 1800s.