This is about the triple-damages rule, which says that if you&#x27;re found to infringe on a patent willingly then the damages are increased, while if you didn&#x27;t know about it, they aren&#x27;t. This, combined with a large number of very-low-quality ambiguous patents and the fact that the patent office&#x27;s screening only creates a legal presumption of validity but not a practical one, means that everyone is strongly incentivized to avoid ever looking at anything the patent office publishes. Which makes things even worse, because the problem is hidden and the patent office can&#x27;t draw on public knowledge to shoot down bad patents.