Craig Alaimo's Assignment 7 CS408 Section 2

Group 2: Patents

Patents are a very important part of protecting one's intellectual property and rights. A patent is defined as a prohibitor from your competitors of copying, manufacturing, importing, or selling your invention. These can be obtained for just about anything a person comes up with, from a toy car to medical equipment. Some pros of patents are potential profits for the inventor. Not only can the patent holder sell their product or idea, but they can also license it and sell it to other individuals or companies, allowing for the opportunity to make additional income. Another pro is that patents last for twenty years after the date the application is filed. This can give the inventor of a new device a head start on creating a new invention. One of the cons of patents are the cost. As of March 2012, the basic filing fee for a utility patent was $380 dollars, along with a filing fee of $250. Additional fees are required at the 3.5 year mark, the 7.5 year mark, and the 11.5 year mark. Often times, these can get into the thousands of dollars and are very costly. Our group felt as though patents are necessary in order to protect someone's intellectual property, but reducing the time allotted would be beneficial. Sometimes, patents restrict people from creating new inventions and products because of the process it takes to obtain a patent and such. A global standard for patents would most definitely not work because this would give no initiative for people to create new things. With 7 billion people in the world, the chances of someone having an idea similar to your own is high. Also, many countries are not as strict on their patent laws as the United States is. Some countries don't protect intellectual property at all, and if a global law went into effect relating to patents, the outcome would not be good. In countries that have high piracy rates and minimal government laws concerning this, their software industry is not as sophisticated and advanced as those countries with strict laws. For example, the United States has a fairly strong reputation as a nation that produces key software for industries. This is because we have strict copyright and patent laws that protect the software companies from being copied. Other countries, like some that reside in the content of Africa, are not as technologically advanced as the United States is, thus inhibiting their development of software. However, our group believes that software patents are necessary in order for software developers to protect their product and ideas. If these patents were not put into place, people from other countries could replicate the exact same software and make profit from it, also known as stealing.