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.
You’re right but for a long time patents haven’t been this clear cut. It’s been a long time practice for tech and bio companies to file for vague patents then sue anyone who comes close.
There also isn’t a bright line between how close you can’t get to a patented tech without being burned. Customers are constantly screaming a tech companies to get what their competitors have...”apple has this, why doesn’t my galaxy S whatever”.
Just the other day I tried to tap to share a website with someone only for them to look at me crazy. Didn’t know only Windows and Android phones had that.
My point is, tech companies know that as soon as a product is released, the first thing their competitors do is take it apart to first, look for new tech for them to copy, and two, look for patent violations. They don’t want to break the law but they do want to skirt it as close as possible...tech development is more often evolutionary then revolutionary so going off in a completely new direction is impossible for every new phone generation.
And you want to break them for this? No, it should be weighed on the severity of the infraction. You know how this lawsuit started...it was over the freakin shape of the Galaxy 4 and some of the colors it used! So yes, it should only be a slap on the wrist.