You are getting close to advocating for "cost plus" which sounds really good to outsiders who are concerned about "too much profit" but have stunted every industry into which they have been deployed, and end up driving prices as suppliers look for ways to increase how much they spend. (The more they spend, the more profit they can make.) Look at the aerospace industry.

I'm not concerned about too much profit. I'm just concerned about stifling competition for too long. Patents feel like crony capitalism in some industries.

After posting I did consider the lone software engineer who comes up with a great idea, creates an app, and his app is then copied by Google who has much better marketing and distribution resources.

If patent duration was a function of investment in R&D, this software developer would be SOL because he invested little into his "eureka" idea.