Comment Re:judge will invalidate (Score 5, Informative) 506
If the jurors had read the courts instructions (which the foreman claimed they didn't need to) then it was about "damages". The court instructions made that clear "You should keep in mind that the damages you award are meant to compensate the patent holder and not to punish an infringer."
The foreman told a court official that the verdict was arrived at without needing the court's instructions.
However, the foreman had this to say after the trial "We wanted to make sure the message we sent was not just a slap on the wrist... We wanted to make sure it was sufficiently high to be painful, but not unreasonable."
So I totally agree with you when you say this was about damages and not penalties from the judge's perspective. I would say that wasn't the case from the juries perspective. To me Hogan's statement suggests that the award itself WAS punishment. I don't know how else to read his comment.