The way it works is that poor people want to become rich and acquire wealth. Of course they don’t have the resources to lobby the government so their only choice is to innovate. Rich people, on the other hand, are happy with the way things are and see innovation as something they should unfairly benefit from and they see it as a potential threat to their current status as well. Since many rich people disregard morality and they have the resources to successfully lobby the government they lobby for intellectual property laws and other laws that will allow them to unfairly exploit any innovation even if at the cost of innovation. Hence the ridiculous intellectual property laws that exist today. Hence cableco companies get a monopoly on who can use the existing infrastructure and who can build new infrastructure. Hence the monopolies that taxi cab drivers get. Hence the fact that taxi cab drivers stole the innovation of putting ads on a transportation vehicle from someone who did innovate because the current taxi cab industry does not innovate, it only steals innovation from others. The government intervenes in such a way as to give the non innovative rich people complete control over innovations in a way that optimally benefits them at the cost of society and at the cost of those who do/would actually innovate without such ridiculous laws.

and another purpose (not function, but INTENDED function) of intellectual property is that it can hinder innovation by allowing a corporation to patent something it never plans to develop. The purpose of this is to prevent others from innovating and creating a product that could disrupt the existing status of immoral rich people.