Then what incentive do I have to spend money and innovate when everyone else can capitalize on it? That comment is a demotivational one for innovation in that it doesn't reward the entity that spend time and resources making it a reality.
Of course, tacit know-how and first-to-market advantages will always exist to some extent. So, in a sense, we can't fully get rid of "IP"-like dynamics. But we can, and should, mitigate them.