A victory for the trolls

Fixing the damages so that they were proportionate to the contribution of the patent in question, rather than being '25% of the product value', which is, I understand the normal rule of thumb (not sure in which jurisdictions that is). The total disconnect between proportionality of damages and the value of patents is what makes the troll business model work. If they only got their fair share (1/10,000th or so of product value in most cases, rather less in the case of the kernel), then it wouldn't be worth bothering with and the problem would (at least mostly) evaporate.

The advantage of this idea is that it seems plausible to make happen (as opposed to totally dismantling the patent system, which would be better, but seems a pretty remote prospect still). I know some people have high hopes that one outcome of the massive smartphone patent war going on at the moment would be some recognition that damages are ludicrously out of proportion to patent value.

We shall see.