I've had to educate myself on intellectual property and its importance. In my opinion, I don't think our economy in general or our population in general understands or appreciates the importance of patents and trademarks. I think if we did, there would be a lot more importance placed on them.
We don't have a culture of IP, so our businesses are not patenting or trademarking. Part of it is about what you said: We don't actually allow those expenses as part of any of our funding mechanisms.
What more can we do to educate people about the importance of patenting and trademarking their ideas? We need to be moving on creating this culture of IP.