Missing the point
The whole point of the US patent and copyright system was to build up the public domain of scientific discovery and creative works, "the progress of science and useful arts", by giving real live inventors and creators a way of feeding their families and paying the rent for "a limited time". The government's failure to reject applications that are clearly based on prior art is just one way that main goal of the system has been betrayed (another being Congress's continued extension of patent and copyright terms --given the pace of change in modern times those terms should probably be getting shorter instead of longer).