Reminds me of the story of Cre-Lox technology which was patented and did not become easily available even to the scientific community for a very long time. It drove scientists crazy and a black market of tools and reagents was developed. However, the company (DuPont) closely followed the literature and anyone publishing using Cre-Lox without licensing were sued. That led to the development of alternative technologies that became freely available to the scientific community (e.g., the TET systems) although they were also patented.