Regardless, American 'intellectual property' law (which is the set being applied here) exists explicitly for the public good (that is, it's written into the constitution as such). The authors thereof debated the upsides and downsides of the whole idea quite a lot too, so we have a fair bit of insight into their thought process.
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts,
by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right
to their respective Writings and Discoveries.>The conventional wisdom holds that American patents have always been grants of special monopoly privileges lacking any justification in natural rights philosophy, a belief based in oft-repeated citations to Thomas Jefferson's writings on patents. Using 'privilege' as a fulcrum in its analysis, this Article reveals that the history of early American patent law has been widely misunderstood and misused. In canvassing primary historical sources, including political and legal treatises, Founders' writings, congressional reports, and long-forgotten court decisions, it explains how patent rights were defined and enforced under the social contract doctrine and labor theory of property of natural rights philosophy. In the antebellum years, patents were civil rights securing important property rights -- what natural-rights-influenced politicians and jurists called 'privileges.'