Interesting points. (Observations are in brackets)
Ian - Shouldn't that picture be more clearly showing an industrial-sized set of booster cables??
(isn't the better question where in the heck does the third 'ground' socket in that plug connect?)
NonSAC - Patents are rejected by the hundreds on a daily basis, (likely true, depends on the country)
and it's getter harder to get a patent approved,
(possibly, depends on the country - in the US yes, but in a place like South Africa not so much)
purely because of the vast number of patents already issued, and the "prior art" reason for rejection.
(way too speculative of an explanation for me to comment on beyond observing that, with many factors including each the law and technology constantly changing, I don't know how to assign causation to any single factor)
Many companies regularly re-try their applications when they are initially rejected.
(I think a better characterization is that they adjust the rights available in view of the examiner's understanding of the state of the art)
Then, the companies always face the litigious companies or individuals, who claim, once the item is in production, that the company producing the item, has stolen THEIR idea/s, and infringed THEIR patent/s... (governments, like the US, set up patent systems with the idea that, in the aggregate, the overall benefit to society outweighs the cost of the right to exclude others from the practice of the invention for a limited period of; maybe so, maybe not...irregardless disputes over ownership of ideas logically follow)