Not a new phenomenon: Gillette patented the technique that Wilkinson Sword had invented for making stainless steel blades, and suppressed the production of the much longer lasting stainless steel blades for a while because they "knew that any gain for them in market share would be overwhelmed by the dramatic reduction in the size of the market"[0] (side note: when Wilkinson Sword started producing stainless steel blades using the technique they invented they were "forced to pay royalty to Gillette for each blade it sold"[1]).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilkinson_Sword#Stainless_stee...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillette#Super_Blue_and_the_Wi...