Before patents, businesses depended fully on trade secret, meaning developments would be made and lost over and over, and progress on a particular technology would be a lot slower because nobody could ever build off of eachother's work.
The patent system today is not really what it was meant to be, but the original patent system I think was an improvement over the status quo of the day.
That is not true. In fact the case if the steam engine highlights how harmful patents are. When the patent expired the amount of innovation flourished.
Patent law, like many other economic interventions relies on claims and arguments that have little to no evidence.
The patent system today is not really what it was meant to be, but the original patent system I think was an improvement over the status quo of the day.