I'm not sure that it's so clear cut. I think we should be more strict with accepting new patents however wrt prior work and extending them. Companies should be able to ignore patents as soon as they find prior work. Then it should become the responsibility of the patent holder to prove that there really isn't prior work. And there really shouldn't be a way to extend patents easily if at all. Patents are also benneficial in that they serve as a database of sorts of new discoveries (with pictures!). I can point to the exact US patent of the field effect transistor,[0] for example.

[0]https://patents.google.com/patent/US1745175A/en