There are lots of legitimate reasons why this could have been so, such as they were patents of some small piece of Theranos' technology that worked, even though

There are lots of legitimate reasons why this could have been so, such as they were patents of some small piece of Theranos' technology that worked, even though their grand scheme did not. However, the real reason is that patents are bogus, and more or less all they assert is that this person or company filed the paperwork first. The Patent Office has not even close to the amount of staff they would need to actually verify that the patents they grant are working.