Consider this: the patent was awarded to a group that could not have invested more than a few thousand dollars of incremental time and resources (in fact, probably the majority of the costs were in the patent application and process itself). And yet the license is worth billions.
Patents were created - and the US Patent Charter still states this - to encourage and enhance the economic stature of the nation. Instead we use patents to throttle it. Imagine if this patent were only good for a few years or up to license fee commensurate with the incremental investment needed to produce and validate the research (even if this fee were 3x, 5x, 10x, etc. of the costs). Everyone could contribute to the work and the pace of innovation accelerates. Instead we've got a couple universities (and, inevitably, follow-on corporate licensors) locking it down for all but the publicly funded and litigous.
There is so much opportunity out there, there are so many brilliant minds, eager innovators, and great startups. Why do we shoot ourselves in the foot with patent nonsense that hasn't been significantly rethought since (in the US) its 18th-century English law origins?