No, patents pretty much only enrich someone at the expense of everyone else. Without patents and copyright we could progress much faster. Look how fast China caught up. It's not becaue they respected intellectual property, I can tell you that.
While there is a decent argument to make here, this isn't it. Obviously a lack of IP protection makes it easier to copy what already exists ("catching up"). The question is whether it makes it easier to develop what doesn't exist yet.
That's why.
We didn't have labor and environmental arbitrage like we do now. One could email IP to someone in China who can mass produce it, with lower quality, lower costs, higher environmental impact and ship it across the Pacific a month later.
300 years ago, if someone stole your windmill design and took it to china, you'd never know.