And surely if the individual genius had a meritorious patent, someone would be willing to fund the lawsuit.
With that inequality out of the way, patents could be what they are promised to be: a way to ensure you can monetize to recover a significant investment that you wouldn't have made without the promise of that patent.
(I don't subscribe to the idea that patents are a good thing though; especially the kind of patents that seem to make up 99% of the patent pool).