Open source would be ruined if it were easier to build upon past works with lower barriers to research and licensing?
> Would this kind of copying be fine in software and not in other scientific papers or other industrial processes?
Scientific papers are more about collecting and experimenting with novel data- and referencing an explicit paper trail of past results. It's not really comparable. Fiction is a better match.
> Would it be fine if I train copilot on a patent database and start creating new patents (at a rate in which is would be unpractical to determine that it is regurgitating prior art)?
This is a problem with the patent system, not copilot, and is also isn't a capability that copilot actually has. You're describing a different system entirely.