From the readings, what exactly are patents? What are the ethical, moral, economic, or social reasons for granting patents?
A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for detailed public disclosure of an invention, and are a form of intellectual property. The reasons behind the granting of patents is that they encourage innovation through new inventions and improvements by rewarding inventors with the exclusive rights to develop and sell their products with the incentive of little competition for as long as the patent is valid. This lack of competition is a big incentive for inventors, as it'd allow them to recoup their costs of invention and then some, whereas this return wouldn't be as probable if anyone could take anyone's ideas. Because of the nature of the public disclosure of patented inventions, it also encourages a culture where keeping products secret ("trade secrets") is less commonplace. In your opinion, should patents be granted at all? Are they really necessary or beneficial for society? Do the promote innovation or do they hinder it? Explain. The argument against patents is that they actually effectively cause the opposite of what they're intended to do, that they actually hinder innovation and commercialization. There are a number of broad and weak patents that aren't being capitalized on economically and simply effectively exist to keep others from creating new things that would use the material of one of these patents as an ingredient. Another criticism of the patent industry is that they don't fit all industries appropriately, possibly including the software industry. As far as whether patents should or shouldn't be granted... I'm not sure. From the outside (where I consider myself to be standing), I could see the logic behind both sides, but I think some hard quantitative research would need to be examined in order to have a proper argument one way or the other. My gut reaction would be that it would stifle innovation, especially if patents are offered for every little thing, as one wouldn't be able to make a decent system or product without infringing on some patent somewhere. Additionally, should patents on software be granted or should patents be restricted to physical or more tangible artifacts? Explain. I think that patents in general could benefit from being restricted to more complex or specific (less general) things. As long as the Supreme Courts can't respond to the problems of gridlock that the multiple broad overlapping software patents cause, then the problems like the ones outlined in the meetings will continue to occur. Finally, is the existence of patent trolls evidence that the patent system is working or that the system is broken? Explain. Evidence that the system is broken, surely. They're adding no value themselves while restricting others from being able to create and market their products and inventions. That is an obvious sin of the latter more than the former.
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AuthorNikolas Dean Brooks is a current Senior at Notre Dame. This blog is for the "Ethics and Professional Issues" course under Dr. Peter Bui. Archives |