NASA Patents Auctioned Back To Public

Today I read an interesting article on Techdirt describing the way Ocean Tomo is auctioning off patents created by NASA. In the article, the author poses the question, didn't tax payers pay for these patents to be created? And now the public will not only not get free access to it now, but will also eventually help some other company make money because they will own the patent that we helped pay for. Personally, I don't understand how this is being allowed...I understand the need for patents within our high tech arms of the government, but I think once the patent is eligible for use by the public, it should be exactly that, eligible for use by the public, not just the commercial players willing to pay for the patent. What do you all think?

Here is the link to the original story:

http://techdirt.com/articles/20080915/1859022278.shtml