In some circumstances, the factors that reduce the rent going to a winning firm may simultaneously indicate that the expenditures of losing firms are not pure losses. It was argued in the Introduction, for example, that the winner of a patent race will get a prize that shrinks with its opponents' expenditures, since the opponents can innovate around the patent. These losing firms, therefore, are not out the entire amount of their expenditures, as they can still capture some rents.