If you accidentally infringe a patent you didn't know existed, it's not willful and the damages are lower. Since it's basically impossible to write software without infringing lots of patents, it's much better not to read any patents, so that you cannot be fined at a higher rate for infringing wilfully.
That's exactly what our legal counsel tells us and which hammers home the uselessness of the current patent system, which in part was meant foster innovation by publishing ideas.
Now folks can publish their ideas, but others have to avert their eyes.
Tough in some situations, since the most heinous software and hardware patents cover end-user stuff where what you see is what is patented. Like the bouncy scroll on the iPhone; it's not the algorithm that is patented, but the end-user product.
Your insight is really that it's impossible to write software because everything is patented, not so much because we're not aware of the patents. Anything we're aware of is patented!
It's also strategic to read patents and violate them anyway. The biggest takeaway from Apple v. Samsung was that other phone companies should have violated Apple's patents, and sooner.
