Part of the problem is the failure of patent offices to do due diligence. Granted, this was exacerbated by the lack of an electronic database that tracked prior patents, public domain stuff, and things declared too general to be patented by the courts.

The project in the US to transfer old patents to digital and make them searchable is way underfunded and understaffed, and still is expected to take decades to finish.

The thing is, big companies like being able to win IP cases just by outspending their opponents, so they lobby to keep IP law byzantine and draconian, and to install judges who are either ignorant or just will side with the bigger company.

WTF?