> Patents are primarily about getting a limited time monopoly.
Nope. Patents have always been about encouraging public disclosure of secrets. This has been the case since they were invented by the Venetians in order to break trade guilds and their literal on-pain-of-death secret maintenance.
The idea was to offer the secret-holder a deal: if you reveal your secret, you get a significant but temporary government-enforced monopoly on use of that secret. If you don't reveal your secret, then you'll just have to hope it doesn't get leaked.
The monopoly is the tool of patent law. But the purpose of patent law is disclosure of information.