If those who filed patents and made a living from their inventions, were numerous: that would be known! That's what I was trying to say.
quite right, because if he is a small inventor, he does not have the means to file an international patent and if his invention is pirated, he does not have the means to sue the wealthy "thieves".
Moreover, a patent (unless it is very simple) is made to be circumvented. The SGDG is bogus and only serves to run the system itself. A few privileged few pass through the mesh and we speak of those there and not of the multitude of others who will have spent their energy and their money for "pits" of plums.
As for copyright, which seems to be a better way, it does not seem to benefit from many testimonies of effectiveness.