What we have now is not a fair deal, to the point that people are trying to re-invent the notions that the laws were originally supposed to embody.
There are plenty of countries that didnt enforce it for a time though and experienced a kind of mini renaissance.
I dont think it was ever really intended to "protect" the rights of inventors nor was it ever good at doing so.
See: America, England, and the Industrial Revolution
Patents don't take into account things like you can "invent" something naturally by exploring given idea. I have few times developed something and then through more research learned it has been patented, so I had to find a different way of doing the same thing and wasting time. Even if I invented something first I wouldn't have means to patent it.
Now we have a situation where things like VC funds are forcing companies to patent anything they can as a prerequisite for receiving money - in case the idea won't get executed correctly, they could chase any other company that comes up with the same idea, for money.
and yeah, you invented something, but for any reason you didn't or couldn't patent it and then some toff's engineer figures the same idea? They get the patent and you have to abandon it.
The whole patent thing should be scrapped is not fit for purpose.
what there was: trademark law, copyright law, and patent law. but 3 turn to 1?
when I stared coming online, national talk about IP laws was just starting out. I don't keep up to date with law reforms, but in the late 90s mainstream awareness was shifting into this mindset of IP law. and back then, the law still spoke of those 3 concepts on their own. I suppose now it's really just one blob of ownership over ideas for the sake of some misguided market-ideology