<i>Being able to license them a patent provides a greater incentive to make that investment.</i><p>In theory.  But that&#x27;s not the only way things can play out. It&#x27;s just as likely that if such an innovation is offered freely to everyone, that everyone will feel compelled to adopt it, exactly because of the fear that their competitors will.  And nobody wants to get left behind.<p>Given that it&#x27;s basically impossible to know how a given scenario will play out ahead of time, I don&#x27;t buy this whole &quot;grant patents on government sponsored developments and then sell them&quot; based on some hypothetical scenario that lacks any real justification.