It's also a "prisoner's dilemma" that involves playing against every other company on the planet.

If you don't patent an idea that you use somebody else will and they will extract rent from you.

So you must "defect" by paying lawyers to search through every product you make looking for ideas you've used that don't have a patent.

You cannot "cooperate" by refusing to patent ideas.

You cannot "cooperate" by refusing to inform people they've violated your patent, because somebody else who uses the idea may also be granted a patent and now you have to go to court or settle.

The result is a flood of articles saying "Apple patents obvious idea X! What bastards!", when in fact every major corporation has no sane option to avoid that behavior.