When he was getting his doctorate his advisor was investigating several proteins that might do fun brain things and handed the specific testing of each off to a different doctoral candidate, one of those proteins ended up being super interesting and netting the candidate a good deal of clout and a foot in the door for high funded research - it was not his.
So rent-seeking compensation for innovations will over-compensate the winners, but the losers who sunk just as much time into research will be deprived of any compensation.
But, as they are useful articles (why copyright doesn't apply in general, though it can apply to specific decorative elements—software, apparently, isn't generally useful), you can patent clothing designs and design elements, with the same non-obviousness, etc., rules applicable to other patents of useful invention. So that's kind of an odd argument to use against patentability of a useful article.
Actually, you can as of 2017, in a specific set of circumstances:
In a 6–2 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Star Athletica, L.L.C. v. Varsity Brands, Inc. in which it held that aspects of Varsity Brands Inc.’s cheerleading uniform designs are protectable under the U.S. Copyright Act.
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/supreme-court-copyright...
Patents on genetics are term limited, not perpetual.
If it is being used as a machine to edit genetics as a way to patent genes, then yes.
If it is being used as a machine to do something less life related, maybe not.
> Is it ok if someone were to take your onions and begin growing them without discourse?
Yes. If you want to get paid to improve onions, get paid for work you will do not work you have done (research grants, onion growers associations, etc). Rent-seeking by owning living things' genetics is, I think, immoral. Rent-seeking, in general, that is patterns that allow you to do one-time work to get perpetual rights to future income is immoral when it passes a certain threshold.