With numerous innovations in technological and scientific fields, people become increasingly aware of the importance and power of patent and its contributions to protecting intellectual property. Patent is defined in the article WIPO – What is IP? as “an exclusive right granted for an invention – a product or process that provides a new way of doing something, or that offers a new technical solution to a problem.” There are many reasons for granting patents. From a moral and ethical perspective, the society has the obligation to protect its members’ belongings and intellectual properties or the creations of the minds are as valuable as any physical properties. Socially, granting patents praises creativity and encourages innovations, which has the potential to improve the quality of life for all human beings.
In principle, patent is given as a form of recognition for inventions and contributions to the society. Granting patents can be beneficial for the society but can also be prone to certain problems. Patent acts as an incentive for innovations but also promote fierce and sometimes unhealthy competitions among inventors that could destroy the collaborative environment, which is essential for technological and scientific advances. Therefore, patent should be granted but should also be tightly regulated to minimize its adverse effects.
Even with an agreement on the legitimacy of granting patents, there is still a more specific debate on whether software products are patentable. The article named “The History of Software Patents” recounts the history of software patent laws. Supreme court has been going back and forth on its decision on this issue, which can be attributed to the difficulties in reconciling the difference between software products and the more traditional physical inventions. According to the article The Supreme Court doesn’t understand software, and that’s a problem, “The Supreme Court complained that in the process described in the patent, ‘each step does no more than require a generic computer to perform generic computer functions.’ Such a generic patent, the court said, isn’t eligible for patent protection. ‘The mathematical formula involved here has no substantial practical application except in connection with a digital computer’.”
The article then argues that in its creative process, programming is more similar to writing a novel than building a car, which means that as a novel, software products are meant to be shared among people and are thus not patentable. However, in my opinion, this is not a valid reason for denying patent protection to software products. First of all, all the benefits of patent protection are applicable to software products: programmers have the right to protect their inventions just as any other manufacturers and it is quite obvious that incentive for innovations is important to the field of software engineering. Second, although the process of producing computer software is similar to writing novels, the usage of computer software is more similar to a car or a drug. Computer software provides a service that is not inherently unique. In another word, when a plagiarized novel is worthless, a duplicated computer software is not. This is another reason why intellectual property in the form of computer software should be protected.
The existence of patent trolls points to the problems with the current existing system. According to the article Jury: Apple must pay $626 million to patent troll VirnetX, patent trolls are companies that have no products and make their money solely through patent litigation. In recent years we see a raise in patent litigation from the 11% in 2014 to 35% in 2015, and patent trolls are responsible for up to 62% of all of these litigations. The behaviors of patent trolls are highly unethical since they are exploiting the system for personal financial gains. However, with many of the benefits of granting patents in mind, we should advocate for a reform of the system instead of calling for an end to granting patents.
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