The first recorded patent of invention was granted to John of Utynam. In 1449, he was awarded a 20-year monopoly for a glass-making process previously unknown in England. In return for his monopoly, John of Utynam was required to teach his process to others. That same function of passing on information is now fulfilled when a patent specification is published.
Some folks call published material "information."
Since when is a design or process not "information"? If you've ever seen a set of specifications in a CADD file, it lays out where the lines and surfaces go, what the text is, what the materials are, etc all on various layers and in various files. It is only information that gets transferred to a numerical control machine to produce the product. All there is to making anything is knowledge, labor, and raw material. The latter two are obviously not patentable.