They would go bankrupt.

No matter how anti-capitalism you are, I hope you can see how broken the argument being made here is. The absolute reality is that, without protections, things like pharmaceuticals would never exist at the scale that we enjoy them.

Of course examples of things that require years of research would exist. However, there would be far fewer of them than there is today.

Patents and copyrights have become corrupted. They need reform. We have to remember though that when they were created, it was to improve the world that existed ( the world that this commenter thinks would be better ).

Patents and copyrights were not invented because making companies richer was a goal. They were invented to better society. They were created with the recognition that, if we wanted companies to invest in innovation, and if we wanted individuals to commit to a long, intensive creative process, that they needed protection. The downside of capitalism at the time was that evil corporations and unscrupulous entrepreneurs could steal your hard work. Patents and copyrights were created to right that wrong and to promote a culture of creativity, invention, and innovation. And it worked wonderfully. We all benefit.

Now, things have of course been corrupted. The idea of “intellectual property” has emerged and we get nonsense like calling copyright violations “piracy”. The protections have been extended far. The penalties have become too great. The idea of public benefit has taken a backseat to profit protection. All this is bad. Throwing out the baby with the bath water is not the answer.