Comment Re:Yeah? So? That is how life works (Score 1) 246
You are conflating ignorance of the law with ignorance of the facts (and you appear to have copious amounts of both).
A pre-existing patent is not law, it is fact. IBM advises its employees to remain ignorant of other patents while working on products because if those products are later found infringing then their liability is reduced.
I was a Master Inventor at IBM before I quit in 2010 and we absolutely did check for pre-existing patents before filing anything new. Occasionally this would lead to wasted effort within IBM because a proposal would get further through the process than it would if the inventors had looked for relevant patents before starting work.