[screwt]

That's simply not true for a manufacturing start-up.

To develop a physical product takes a long time, with a lot of (costly[1]) trial and error. You'll start with single items, then move on to batch production (10s-100s) on a few versions to test proof of concept. Depending on the size of the market, you may move on to mass production. For each scale increase, the start-up cost is higher, and the unit cost is lower.

If I develop a product, and in doing so show it has great potential, I've done most of the hard work. It's then easy for someone to go straight in at the top end with relatively little investment, because I've already proved the concept and sucked up the risk.

It's fair that people are able to protect their investment for something like this, otherwise it's not possible to compete against larger players.

Physical manufacturing is not the same as software.

[1] Relative to developing software, that is.