[jordigh]

It is not historically inaccurate, it's encoded in the name of the damn thing. The patent system predates the creation of the United States, and its spirit is more than the ambiguous summary of "to promote progress".

The history of patents is long, but Queen Anne's statute is where the the nature of disclosing trade secrets was formalised:

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/patent/p-about/p-whatis/p-histor...

[csallen]

I'm not saying that patents don't accomplish more than promoting progress. They do! I just believe your claim ("The whole point of patents is [to] increase society's knowledge of how to do things") is overly ambitious. That's an important part of the patent system, yes, but far from "the whole point".

As Thomas Jefferson wrote about the US patent system: "Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility..."