Patents are among the
tools used by
corporations to generate
profit, and
control the things we use.
Once upon a time, so the story goes, patents, like copyright, were for the benefit of the individual creator--the inventor or writer. I am uncertain if that has ever really been the case.
All the parts that went into making radio, existed long before RCA came into existence, or built them. Only when the patent pools were assembled, did this happen.
Nowadays, most discoveries require vast investment of cash, and only corporate interests can provide that--so the corporate interests control them.
This is just another step in the transfering of those rights we once thought inhered in human persons, to corporate persons.