I haven't yet met any inventor worth a damn that wouldn't invent and innovate for the heck of it. There are really only two things I see patents incentivizing:

I haven't yet met any inventor worth a damn that wouldn't invent and innovate for the heck of it. There are really only two things I see patents incentivizing: innovation in otherwise unattractive fields, and development of further innovations due to money won from licensing. I'm not familiar enough with each to comment on how well this works in practice.