One of the main issue with patent is that they are absolutely not scalable (aside from the difficulty to judge what is patentable and what isn't).
Basically every inventor is supposed to check everything patented by every other inventor (so that's inventor squared complexity). Plus, with systems of systems as we have today, the value of the base bricks decrease much more rapidly than the patent constraints (software practice and transistors become market standard/ old tech in a couple of years, whereas patents stay for 20). That means for the same amount of innovation in a product, at constant R&D investment, there is an increase number of patented parts (and related costs) in your product.

Patents should fade at the same pace as tech improve (ie life of patent ~ life of tech / size of the industry R&D)