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From: Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: The joy of Patents
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2024 00:16:01 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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On Tue, 22 Oct 2024 14:04:53 -1000, Lynn Wheeler wrote:

> claim was constitution setup patent system to protect new innovative
> players from large monopolies (that nominally protect their status quo).

The original concept was called “letters patent”. These were Government-
granted monopolies in particular industries (e.g. salt extraction from 
seawater, or the manufacturer of gold leaf); if anybody else tried to set 
up in competition with you, the legitimate monopoly holder, the Government 
would send its goons round to give them a hiding.

When it became clear the system was outdated, instead of getting rid of it 
completely, the idea was changed so that you needed to come up with some 
kind of “invention” to get a “patent”, which gave you a monopoly on the 
rights to that “invention”.

Though oddly, the concept of “invention” needs to be narrowly defined. For 
example, Einstein couldn’t get a patent on his groundbreaking General 
Theory of Relativity, but microchips exploiting General Relativity to 
accurately determine your position in space and time can indeed be 
patented. Was the underlying enabling theory too “inventive” to be 
patented, perhaps?