Why on earth would there be legal risks to reading a patent? Contrary to copyright, whether you're infringing on a patent because you read it or because you happened to have the same idea is completely irrelevant. I know some free software guys are pretty paranoid about reading proprietary code, but I see no reason why this should transpose to patents.
(but IANAL, so perhaps I'm missing some subtle point)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_infringement_under_Unit... 'If an infringer is found to have deliberately infringed a patent (i.e. "willful" infringement), then punitive damages can be assessed up to three times the actual damages. Legal fees can also be assessed.'
Right. It might be just a matter of legal departments cargo culting, but it's very common for companies to ask engineers not to read outside patents for this reason. One might think that it'd make sense to read through patents in order to avoid them, but that only works if the patents are actually even remotely understandable by a normal person.
There are situations where patents need to be read, but it's not going to be done by a random engineer.
(but IANAL, so perhaps I'm missing some subtle point)