Well if you're going to ask that question, I'm going to ask a corollary:

Has anyone seen any innovation that has been really protected by patents, that couldn't have been protected merely with trade secrets and industrial capability (i.e., big companies are physically and organizationally able to make things that small companies cannot due to their resources, therefore they're really the last ones to need patent protection, but they're also the ones most able to afford spending huge sums of money on patent fees and enforcement)?