I have worked for and with a lot of major technology corporations, and the official policy for employees has always been "willful ignorance": do not read patent

I have worked for and with a lot of major technology corporations, and the official policy for employees has always been "willful ignorance": do not read patents, do not discuss patents, except with an attorney. So a lot of highly-paid patent attorneys must feel this is a valid approach. That is one reason it's obvious the patent system is off the rails -- since part of the idea of patents is to encourage people to publish their inventions, presumably to be read by others.