So what I am doing: I subscribed to all patents from Google and Microsoft for which I get a weekly mail. I scan those headlines for anything that interests me.
That said: It’s really complex topic and I would argue that reading patents doesn’t help you to understand the whole search algo.
• not every algo used by Google is covered by a patent issued to Google
• not every patent issued to Google is used in the search algo
Patents can help you better understand the mindset of search engineers but they probably won’t help you to be significantly more successful with your website. At least that is what I can tell you after doing SEO for over 20 years now.