It strikes me that there's an extreme lack of accountability back towards the patent office. In this article you have patent examiners saying "sure we get it wrong all the time", with no real recognition of the disastrous real world consequences of that for the companies who then later become victims of patent litigation (or even conversely, companies who went ahead and invested their future based on their patents being valid and now when it is overturned, have their business destroyed by competitors).

Imagine if, when a patent is overturned as part of a patent infringement case, the defendant could claim all costs and damages they had suffered due to the faulty patent from the patent office? How fast would the system change?