If there were no patents most of them would just be kept as secrets, and you would, for the most part, get right back where you started(if not in a worse position)
What you're talking about is a very specific area of patent law: Patents on manufacturing processes. The assumption is that without the patent the knowledge necessary to reproduce the products made with the method would be extremely difficult or impossible. This is nonsense in this day and age.
Modern engineers of varying sorts can reverse engineer basically any process and underpaid employees who know the secrets can be easily poached. Therefore, the entire concept of patents existing for the sake of disclosure falls flat on its face.
> Modern engineers of varying sorts can reverse engineer basically any process
This is in part because they are steeped in a society where essentially all innovations are published, and have been for hundreds of years. This would not be the case if each engineer could only draw on a single career's worth of exposure to actual practices.
