Lawmakers will provide for statutory damages for acts in which it is difficult to determine a precise value of the loss suffered by the victim.
[1] Other functions that can be served by statutory damages include reducing administrative costs and clarifying the consequences of violating the law.
[3] The term also applies wherein damages are a multiple of what the legally entitled payment would have been in the matter, which would be typical for copyright or trademark infringement.
In intellectual property cases (relating to copyright or trademark, for instance), it is often difficult for plaintiffs to determine the exact volume of infringement.
Some commentators argue that the court should rely on postdate information to deter patent infringement and ensure the patent holder's adequate compensation,[9] while others argue that doing so would "give the potential licensee a free option to infringe, which would discourage the potential licensee from promptly entering into a licensing agreement.