"41 iPads have been seen and 22 have exhibited the problem, eight to the degree of having been blocked from further access to the network"

Presumably they all have the same software, so they're not banning machines that exhibit a problem so much as those whose owners behave a certain way.

Can this be patched through a software update?

It may be a firmware update, but there wouldn't be many technical reasons they can't correct this. Worst case is that they could shut down their network stack before going to sleep (what ever you wish to call that mode).