There's an episode of ST:TNG where the crew rescues a threesome of frozen people from the 21st century -- the three were cryogenically preserved until their health problems could be cured -- and the crew tries to explain that money no longer has meaning on Earth, that everybody has everything they need, everything they want, and they provide to the society according to their abilities. So patent ideas are a moot point by the time of Star
Trek's energy-based replicators.