Why aren't patents just "use it or lose it" like trademarks? That would seem to eliminate most of the abuse in a targeted way. Unless I'm missing something...
Because sometimes you need a lot of money to setup manufacturing. The covid vaccines are easy to make in a lab at a rate of 10/week. To make them useful though you need the money to setup manufacture them at scale, and one easy way to get that is to sell a patent. Use it or lose it means anyone who might buy the patent is incentivized to wait until you lose it and then use it for free.
