Freon patents ran out. Replacements force use of inferior chemicals so large corps have monopoly again. Everyone wins, government gets taxes, environmentalists think they accomplish goals, middle class gets screwed.
But you are probably right there are probably patents at stake again, but I don't know the status of any HFC patents.
When they switched over from CFCs to HFCs it often took awhile to get the new appliances using it to become as efficient as they were with CFCs,but the immediate effect was a big price increase in refrigerants. CFCs weren’t banned altogether,but weren’t supposed to be produced any longer. Where there was some existing stock(and I think you can still find some)the price increase for that was astronomical. Conversion in an existing A/C unit to HFC(R134)didn’t always work out. Ozone in the upper atmosphere is created naturally by the sun(as I understand the process)and is said to be what protects us from excess UV radiation from the sun.. The ozone levels in the atmosphere are constantly changing. CFCs were said to be destroying ozone molecules in the upper atmosphere & that is supposedly why production was stopped on them. CFCs are heavier than air,so how did they get into the thin upper atmosphere? This has never been explained to my satisfaction.