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That seems like a poor analogy, if you mean the park already exists and the company is just trying to take possession of it. In this situation, there is no park

That seems like a poor analogy, if you mean the park already exists and the company is just trying to take possession of it. In this situation, there is no park at the outset, and the company would have no incentive to build one if it didn't have some way to benefit from it once built. Companies will only create this kind of IP if they can profit from it; they're not charities. If we as a society want this IP to exist, our only options are to protect the profit motive that leads to its private creation, or (like the park!) fund it publicly.

jannotti 9y ago
Or, perhaps being the first to develop a new technique is actually a sufficient competitive advantage to fund the research. This is surely true in many cases where a first mover advantage is large. If you look closely, I think you'll find the research costs in many areas that are prone to making this argument (drugs) are not nearly as large a component of the company's costs as you think.