> This is no longer the era of Thomas Edison and the individual inventor.

I get your point, but Edison is the worst possible example to use here.

You're describing the system as it exists today, where the powerful have been allowed to run rampant, suppressing competition, for decades. Not to mention the loss of trust in the patent system as a whole, due to things like software patents being transparently corruptions of the system.

If it were possible for an individual to profit from their patent today as they would have in the 1970s, it's much more likely that people would seek patents.