Patents holding things back is a feature. It encourages innovation because patents give a lot of security to innovators. Even if you found a way to incentivize innovators while simultaneously subjecting them to the ruthless meat grinder called the free market, it would just result in everything changing all the time. There’s no hurry. Technological progress isn’t always neutral, either. A new technology, even medical technology, could change the equation irreversibly in a very negative way. We’ve just been lucky recently.
