You are sadly uninformed about patents and use thereof.
First, the inventor(s) get credit for the invention.
Second, the patent is “owned” by the individual or organization employing the individual(s).
How the patent is exploited may well benefit your taxpayers but we are not socialist and society does not have any rights to this intellectual property.
Actually, it appears the other way around because of this:
How the patent is exploited may well benefit your taxpayers but we are not socialist and society does not have any rights to this intellectual property.
The idea about patents as pertains to this country came from the Founders, who thought all knowledge should be free, belonging to everybody. However, some like Madison believed that a limited temporary monopoly on the use of that knowledge could be incentive to create even more; the benefit to society would be more than the "evil" (his exact word) of the monopoly. Therefore he argued for the existence of patents and copyrights, thinking that the will of the people could prevent the abuse of these monopolies. Jefferson was against even this limited monopoly, fearing its inevitable abuse. Boy, was Jefferson right, probably even more than he could have imagined. "Intellecutal property"? Bah, "Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property." -- Thomas Jefferson.
Now given that, the constitutional basis of copyright is to provide a monetary incentive to people to invest time and/or money to produce more advances that can get the protection of patent in order to recoup the investment. But the government is providing the money here, the government paid for their time. Therefore there is no consitutional basis for granting them a patent.
I do know what our patent and copyright systems have eroded into, a vast unconstitutional monster. Thus I know why they would be granted a patent under the current unconstitutional system. I just don't think it's right.
Second, the patent is “owned” by the individual or organization employing the individual(s).
And even if you want to go that way, the government is the one paying for it all, so the government is the end employment organization and gets to have the patent.
My tax dollars are being used to directly fund corporate profit. I see something wrong with that. If corporations want the profit, they should pony up the R&D funds and assume all the risk. Laying the risk on the taxpayers yet still reaping the profit is wrong.