We could ask, though, <i>which</i> R&amp;D gets protected by patents but not by copyright or trade secrets?  Which R&amp;D would not produce a return on investment if patents didn&#x27;t exist?<p>Drug research, perhaps, though we might be able to find other solutions there, or produce a much more limited form of patent for that industry alone.  What else currently depends fundamentally on patents for its business model?<p>Looking at the many groups working on FOSS media codecs past and present (VP8, VP9, AoM, Opus, Vorbis), I&#x27;d say the media situation would actually get <i>better</i> in the absence of patents.