Patent Infringement is Property Infringement

A patent is a property right.
Accordingly, patent infringement is an infringement of a property right.
For this reason, patent infringement requires “compensation”.


The way to compensate for patent infringement is as follows,
-Injunction
-Damages
-Credit restoration measures
-Criminal penalties

An injunction prohibits the shipment of infringing products or the provision of infringing services.
Damages are the payment of nuisance fees for patent infringement. Strictly speaking, there are two types of claims for damages and unjust enrichment, but since the payment of money is of common interest, they are summarized as “damages” in the following.
A measure to restore credibility is to issue an official apology, such as by posting an apology advertisement.
Criminal penalties include imprisonment and fines.

In cases of patent infringement, injunctions (business stoppage) and damages (sudden expenditure) are the main issues, since credit restoration measures and even criminal penalties are seldom an issue.

Injunction is the Most Powerful Card

An injunction in patent law means to stop the tort of patent infringement.
Specifically, the shipment of a product found to infringe a patent is stopped. For example, if a semiconductor memory is found to infringe a patent, the sale of this semiconductor memory will be prohibited.
Services that are found to be infringing will also be stopped. If an Internet brokerage firm's services are found to infringe a patent, the firm will not be able to continue its securities services.
An injunction will not only result in lost sales, but also inconvenience to customers.

Products suspected of infringing patents are at risk of being “enjoined,” which means that even if the product is not actually enjoined, it will be a hindrance to business.

For example, when Company X decides either Company A or Company B as a supplier, if there is a possibility of patent infringement in Company A's product, it will be difficult for Company X to adopt Company A's product.
The reason is that a future injunction may hinder stable procurement.

Existing customers may leave.
If Company Y, an existing customer of Company A, recognizes the patent risk of Company A's product, it may change its procurement source from Company A to Company B to manage the risk.

If Company A's product infringes Company B's patent, Company B may use its own patent to exclude Company A.
For Company B, its own patents are a powerful sales weapon.

An injunction is like a suspension of business.
An injunction also carries the risk of losing your customer base.

An injunction is the strongest card a patentee can play.

Sudden Expenditure of Damages

Damages are often treated as an extraordinary loss for accounting purposes.

It is difficult to predict how much damages will be awarded, and in some cases the injuries are minor, while in others, several years' worth of business profits have been wiped out.
The payment of damages can become a burden on business operations for several years. In this case, the company's value will also decline.

Damages can also be serious, depending on the amount.
For this reason, even a company that normally performs IP work in a solemn manner will lose the limiter of its IP budget in an emergency.

Negative Effects

The image of a company that infringes on patents lowers the value of its brand.
If anything, it is the poor response to patent infringement, rather than the fact that a patent infringement has occurred, that will lead to the deterioration of a company's image.

If the case develops into a patent infringement lawsuit, business operations will be disrupted.
For startups, small and medium-sized companies, and others with limited human resources, being involved in a patent infringement lawsuit can significantly slow down operations. If the company loses, it may not be able to stand on its own feet.

Sales will drop, customers will leave, damages will be large, business will stagnate, and the company's image will deteriorate...etc. Patent infringement problems can be troublesome if they become complicated.

It Doesn't Matter If You Didn't Know.

Patent infringement is more common when the infringer did not intend to infringe but infringed as a result, i.e., there was no malice aforethought.
To avoid patent infringement, the Patent Office publishes all patents on the Internet.

Companies are required to review all of the vast number of patents and to do business in a manner that does not infringe on patents. This is why patents are made public.
Companies must be aware of what patents are out there and be careful not to be accused of stealing ideas.

The excuse that you did not imitate, but just happened to think of the same idea, is not acceptable (*some exceptions apply).

This is quite a demanding setup, since there are so many patents and new patents are granted every day.
Perhaps when the patent law was created, it was not envisioned that we would be in a world with such a huge number of patents.

How to Avoid Patent Infringement

To avoid patent infringement, the first step is to conduct a thorough search for relevant patents (clearance search) when starting a new business.
If a new product or service is likely to infringe on any patents, you should take risk countermeasures by making design changes at the planning stage.
If there is a patent that is difficult to judge, you can request a patent attorney to provide an infringement opinion.

It is also desirable to create a system to monitor newly granted patents as a routine task.
For example, once a month or so, checking for patents newly published by the Patent Office in technical fields related to the company's business, and examining whether there is any impact on the company's business.
It is advisable to detect dangerous patents at an early stage and take countermeasures.
More preferably, monitoring patents from the stage before they are granted, and if a dangerous patent is about to be granted, interfering with the granting of the patent by providing information to the examiner to deny patentability.

Establishing an internal system to this level will greatly reduce the risk of patent infringement.

While it is important to patent your own ideas, it is equally important to monitor what ideas other companies are trying to patent.