Why should you invest significant amounts of money to make some kind of invention when you could just wait for someone else to do the 'heavy lifting' for you.
This concern only really matters when you're not pals with the people printing the money (or for those borrowing millions interest-free). When you have that kind of game-rigging happening in the heart of your system, the rules no longer apply.
Besides, if your big company fails because some little guy copied you and undercut your prices, you'll just get bailed out anyway! Or even if you don't get bailed out, we all know the executives will have their golden parachutes ready.