Can one be condemned to pay compensation damages for plagiarism if one distributes but does not materially produce?
The Industrial Property Code gives the owner of a patent the exclusive right to produce and trade his own invention; therefore those producing and those selling the item in question are contravening this, unless they are doing it for private personal use. Even if it has been distributed without any fault having been unaware of the fact that others patented it, however, as there is a register listing all the patents, by law we should have the knowledge of it. Obviously, if it is a small distribution limited only to a few pieces, no large compensation can be claimed, and very often the action taken against the distributor has got different purposes, mainly to know the business turnover. Who violates the patent is then responsible also from the penal point of view, but in this case the conditions are stricter than the previous ones. In particular, the “fraud” is requested against the counterfeiter, then the will to counterfeit a patent and the effective knowledge of the patent existence is demanded, therefore here the fact that the same patent was published is not sufficient, but it is necessary that the party was aware of it.