But they just can't be. Many millions of dollars are spent gaining bad patents and litigating them unfairly. In practice, they're a tool which enables and amplifies the worse parts of human and societal nature, a tool for the abuse of power.
I say we just give them up. There may be fewer published inventions, but not that many fewer really. Some inventors will be motivated to invent for its own sake. Others will profit from being involved in the implementation and commercialization of their own inventions combined with others. Some inventors will get "screwed" when others get rich off their creations. But that happens today anyway. There will likely be disagreements about who really came up with the core of an idea first, or who's idea is really more core to the product, and without patents, those arguments won't cost millions of dollars and stifle creation. Everyone would be better off IMHO.