[JRGC1]

like most things, it may have started out to protect or help the "little guy", but it inevitably gets corrupted and subverted. It now only protects the big players. Even if you have created something truly novel, the big guys will out-litigate, outspend, and outlast you. And, the big guys can afford to patented so many obvious "inventions" as to stifle any competition.

The patent system has become a victim of regulatory capture.

That is of course, if it really did start out to protect the little guy.

[gumby]

The patent system grew out of the European guild system. It was the opposite of regulatory capture: the local authority (typically a king) would be paid to sanction a monopoly (on shoemaking or whatever). So the shoemakers could keep their secrets but even if one leaked it didn’t matter because they controlled making shoe at all.

The US patent system was the first that worked differently: it was a bribe to the inventor for disclosure: if you describe your invention so anyone could copy it, the government will let you use the courts to enforce a temporary monopoly.

Sometime in the 20th century the “so anyone could copy it” part fell into abeyance and now one of the strategies is to write as vaguely and ambiguously as possible, both to make it harder to copy and so you could argue that someone doing something vaguely related or parallel was “infringing”.

Patents only really work in a few places. Pharma is one because the R&D and other up front capex is massive compared to production.

But few other domains even have that issue.

[nephihaha]

"That is of course, if it really did start out to protect the little guy."

One version I have heard is that it started as a means for the military to gain access to the latest technological developments.