Audi and their patents

It was with confusion and a small amount of horror that I watched the Audi advert for their new A6. You can see the advert on their website if you haven't seen it yet.

The advert compares the number of patents NASA has filed in it's history (6509) with the number of patents Audi filed during the development of the A6 (9621). I wonder if Audi did research into the public perceptions of patents before creating this advert. The average person may assume that more is better and thus infer that the Audi A6 is better than anything NASA has ever put together (better than space travel?!?). Then again the average person may think that patents are tools used to hinder innovation and kill off advancement in many industries.

My assumption (which could also be wrong) is that the average person equates a patent with an invention, something new and never seen or done before. The average person is going to see the advert and assume that Audi made 9621 inventions while developing the A6. Well what are they? Surely at least 1 of those inventions is so amazing that it is worth talking about? No? Can you then maybe name some of the 9621 changes you made to the car? That is a lot of change but it looks and drives the same.

What is so special about a patent that Audi has chosen it as a measurement of 'brilliance' for it's new offering? Not a single one of the 9621 patents is worth talking about alone, it's still just a car, and it doesn't fly into outer space (which would be pretty cool) - so all I can assume is that a ton of the money I spend on an Audi goes towards registering patents that aren't actually anything amazing and are instead little patents that Audi is registering in order to prevent anyone else from innovating in the field of engineering or motoring.

I love being an Audi driver but I truly don't understand the reasoning behind this advert. Can someone explain it to me?