That's almost certainly not the intent. I'm pretty sure most Americans don't know or care very much about patent abuse, so to make this 'punishment' even remote

That's almost certainly not the intent. I'm pretty sure most Americans don't know or care very much about patent abuse, so to make this 'punishment' even remotely effective Apple would have to accompany it with a significant amount of marketing to get the message across. Have you heard of anything even remotely like that coming out of Apple? I mean, I guess they still could, but it does seem a pretty un-Apple thing to do.