Unlike many other topoi of the political discourse (such as e.g. freedom, taxes), intellectual property apparently had no role in the antique cosmos and emerged in early modern times.
In medieval Europe, the idea of asking a political power to grant exclusive rights for developing a business has evolved apparently independently in various times and places. In the literature on the history of patents one normally begins with the general history of guilds (such as Renouard [28]) or with what now would be called ''utility models'' in Venice (14th century) granted by glass-makers guilds. Patents evolve e.g. in 16th century England and in the 16th century German states. At that time, of course, grants of privileges were obtained individually from the local sovereigns: ''So we ask Sigmund von Maltitz carefully to give us upon our letter the ducal mercy that during his lifetime nobody in our country can make a waterworks of said art,''[13, p. 90] an entrepreneur writes in a 1512 letter. Hoffmann [13] also shows that already the early patent applicants were aware of the modern justification for granting patents: reward for labor as natural right, contract theory as well as disclosure and motivation effects.
Originally the term ''patent'', coined in 16th century England, in addition to inventions, was also used for all other kind of crown-granted monopolies, or simple exploitation of businesses (such as e.g. lighthouses) or printing of books (the regulation of the book market being politically important):
''The event in the history of Anglo-American copyright that led to the shaping events of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was the Charter of the Stationers' Company granted in 1556 by Philip and Mary, the Roman Catholic successors to Henry VIII's Protestant son, Edward VI. The Charter gave the stationers the power to make ordinances, provisions, and statutes for the governance of the art or mistery of stationery, as well as the power to search out illegal presses and books and things with the power of seizing, taking, or burning the foresaid books or things, or any of them printed or to be printed contrary to the form of any statute, act, or proclamation.'' [23]. The term ''copyright'' refers to the rule that in order to print (''copy'') a book, a publisher had to register his publication with the Stationers Company.