I will be downmodded that much, that I would see the core of Earth, but I have to say it: "a tool for encouraging innovation into a panicked land grab" was the primary goal. Think: who was the people who created patents young/pour inventors, or elite ones that wanted protection from the hungry ones?

It was known even to them that patents were a tool for controlling innovation to their interests (unnaccessible fees, even to poor people). The point is a "patent" of an "invention" should be a right of a citizen, without additional fees. It's not a product, it's a right within the community!

EDIT: We all want to believe that our founders were truly ingenuous good people. But the truth is, they'll never be.