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No, IP law goes back much further than you imagine. The US started to grant patents in 1790 and the British even before that. What the US was doing was IP theft even in the law system that existed back then.


It wasn’t till the late 1700s that patents became form of intellectual property, before that it was a form of granting economic monopoly. Some of these “patents” were for already existing things, to give the grantee a monopoly over the sale of a particular common item. In addition, patents as we understand them today as a form of intellectual property didn’t coalesce till mid to late 1800s.


You can delude yourself anyway you want by reinterpreting things you don't like.




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