Actually, the issue is exorbitant damage awards for infringement, not whether infringement of a patent is in and of itself something that should go unpunished.
No, Rasputin, they want the crime of Patent infringement to be equivalent to a traffic ticket. . . a minor infraction. The law in the past has been that the willful infringer loses ALL profits from his infringement, regardless how minor, because the punishment is deemed to be necessarily harsh to discourage it. Judges are even granted the power to TREBLE the damages if they deem the willfulness egregious. If it is anything less, say made a minor infraction, then it will be practiced as a means of doing business (which happens to be Samsung's business model, a pattern they have repeated over and over again, copy patented products and wait until they get slapped on the wrist and move on to another), a mere cost, and there would be NO BENEFIT in granting patents at all.
Patents and copyrights are the one statutory type thing enumerated in our Constitutions for good reason. Making light of them by devolving the penalties downward is NOT a good idea.