> I don't see any evidence other than thought experiment to say that something was invented because the patent system existed.
The patent system is designed to reward the publication of technologies, not their development.
The patent system is designed to reward the publication of technologies, not their development.
If a technology can be reasonably be kept as trade secret, a patent system provides an incentive to publish it as a patent instead (25 years guaranteed exclusivity instead of exclusivity until it somehow leaks or somebody else figures it out).
But some technologies are easy to figure out once you have the consumer device in your hand. In that case a patent system might help incentivize commercializing that technology at all. After all, why would you develop something only to invite everybody else to sell a cheaper version.
This is another way of saying "actors in less advanced economies ignore IP protections until they've more or less caught up".
That was the US IP strategy, which it now decries when others follow it. Enabled by faster international feedback loops, China is, er, innovating on the strategy, simultaneously weaponizing IP law while also expropriating through various means.