A lot of government funded R&D e.g. from the NIH or NSF has stipulations actually that say the data and results be made publicly available so that other researchers may benefit. At the end of the day we have to decide where our values lie. Do they lie with individualized benefit? Then we allow people to have protection legally so they may individually profit off of that technology using a perverted market condition (them having the sole rights of distribution for a period of time). If we value the collective whole, then we would share these ideas with others who would benefit from them and further them still, like we do medical research. You have to decide where your moralities lie.