A patent is a form of intellectual property given to the owner and creator of an invention which prohibits others from making, selling, using and importing this invention for a prolonged period of time. Generally, this period of time is 20 years, but it could be longer. In terms of the ethical and moral reasons for granting patents, it prohibits an unethical individual from attempting to steal another person’s invention for their own profit. Because patents do not allow someone other than the patent holder to sell the invention, without the patent holder’s discretion, the only person that can profit off of this invention is the patent holder. This also looks at one of the economic consequences of a patent. Due to the patent’s restrictive nature, only a patent holder can benefit economically from their invention, which may deter innovation with regards to technology using this patented invention.
In my opinion, I believe that patents are necessary and should definitely be granted, but I do understand the counter argument for them. I believe that we should recognize the invention of a person or group of people and grant them a patent on their invention since they were the sole proprietors of said invention. Not doing so seems wrong to me which is why I believe that patents should be granted. I do understand that issuing these patents to restrict the use of the invention to the patent holder will hinder innovation and stop this line of invention at the patented product, however, I feel that there are much more inventions to be created beyond the patented inventions right now. Because of this, entrepreneurs will look at this and deduce that, if they can come up with a useful, practical invention that is not already patented, they can profit from it. And due to the fact that they hold the patent and are the sole person able to sell it, use it and make it, they would be reaping all of the benefits from their product. That fact, I believe, will spur innovation into realms we currently do not have any patented products in.
Where I believe that patent law gets tricky is on individual pieces of software. The purpose of software is for it to be deployed to many people so that it can make a process more efficient and easier to do. However, the definition of patents state that the patent holder must be the only person to use the invention, or else it is a breach of patent law. This presents a contradiction, one which I am not sure how to fix.
With regards to “patent trolls” I believe that this does not show that the patent system is broken, but that there is room for improvement to restrict these unethical people from doing just that. According to the readings, a patent troll is someone who uses patents as “legal weapons” and buys up patents from failing companies in order to attempt to sue a booming company for patent infringement. This is clearly wrong and needs to be addressed by the patent system.