This is why there should be an annual fee to renew a patent that increases exponentially, with the base proportional to the worth of the individual/company fili

This is why there should be an annual fee to renew a patent that increases exponentially, with the base proportional to the worth of the individual/company filing the patent at the time of filing. That ties the duration of a patent directly to how much value it provides to the company over time, which is the rationale for having patents in the first place. A company could only afford to hold onto a patent for as long as it causes the company’s revenue to grow exponentially. Once the patented technology matures and growth plateaus, keeping the patent would become prohibitively expensive.