It almost looks like as soon as expensive R&D is done and someone made a copy or knock-off of some piece of technology, it had suddenly appeared out of thin air

It almost looks like as soon as expensive R&D is done and someone made a copy or knock-off of some piece of technology, it had suddenly appeared out of thin air, and the original inventors/investors who made it possible are patent trolls because they aren't giving it away free for all. H264 vs VP8 is just like that, it took years and millions to get to the point where we are now, but hey it's not free (in some specific cases where you make money off of it yourself), so it must be evil and we should kill it with fire :-/