The main problem is that most patents last 20 years. To fix the problem, durations should be dramatically reduced (60% reduction would be a good start) and there should be provisions to protect against patent trolls, i.e. that your lawsuit if frivolous UNLESS you are either the original inventor or can prove an active attempt to commercialize the technology.

There is some good to intellectual property -- it's more of a tuning problem that is currently tuned for the slow moving 1800's.