It can cost lots of money to invent something brand new, but not that much to reproduce it. It is true due to brand name awarness, production and distrubtion networks already in place it can be hard in some fields for a new company to just reproduce an item and sell it successful.
What no patents can cause companies in a field to stop doing the very expensive process of inventing brand new products and just spend their time tinkering with existing ones to make them slightly better or different. A new product is much more valuable to society.
Without patents technology would be much less advance than it is now.
Patents are given out way too easily. You have companies thats sole purpose is to make up patents, not to produce anything, but to sue companies that due.
That probably more of a problem with corporate law and endless appeals than. For all the complaints you hear about medical lawsuits, corporate law is way, way worse and drives the costs of all goods up.
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