Many economists of innovation are hostile to patents as they currently stand: they do not seem to be important drivers of R&D in most industries, the market power they lead to generates substantial deadweight loss, the legal costs around enforcing patents are incredible, and the effect on downstream innovation can be particularly harmful. The argument for patents seems most clear cut in industries where the invention requires large upfront fixed costs of R&D that are paid only by the first inventor, where the invention is clearly delineated, where novelty is easy to understand, and where alternative means of inducing innovation (such as market power in complementary markets, or a large first mover advantage) do not exist. The canonical example of an industry of this type is pharma.
Duncan Gilchrist points out that the market power a patentholder obtains also affects the rents of partial substitutes which might be invented later…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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