[youraverageuser]

Boldrin & Levine: Against Intellectual Monopoly.

The book opens up with a case of James Watt (after whom the Watt SI units are named), and that even though he came up with the steam engine, only after the patent for steam engine expired, was the world able to benefit from his invention. Most of the time while patent was active, he was busy fighting off others, trying to extract financial gain (AFAIK). Not only that, his initial design was subpar, and the improvement that was important was actually patented by somebody else.

I would like to finish the book someday though...

[freejazz]

But if there was no patent, he'd have kept it under trade secret in perpetuity, and no one would have been able to make that improvement