Design-arounds are considered to be one of the benefits of patent law.
By providing monopoly rights to inventors in exchange for disclosing how to make and use their inventions, others are given both the information and incentive to invent competitive alternatives that design around the original patent.
[2] In the field of vaccines, for example, design-arounds are considered fairly easy.
The amount of license fee that a patent troll can demand is limited by the alternative of the cost of designing around the troll's patent(s).
[4] In order to defend against design-arounds, inventors often develop a large portfolio of interlocking patents, sometimes called a patent thicket.