Why Are Patents Important For Technology?

Patent: A government authority or license conferring a right or title for a set period, especially the sole right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention.

A patent is a legal document giving inventors the property right to their own invention. A patent didn’t always mean the rights to an invention though. A patent used to mean a special privilege or favor. It also could be used to acquire more land or obtain rights to explore a new land. Presently the patent is used only for the rights to your invention. Virginia Alexandrea from The United States Patent and Trademark Office wrote the article “General Information Concerning Patents” where she described what Patent rights include.

Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution provides the federal government with the power to issue patents and copyrights in order “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries” (U.S. Const. art. I, § 8). A patent provides the inventor with an exclusive right to “use, license or sell and invention,” (U.S. Const. art. I, § 8), as such the product, service, process or design becomes the personal property of the inventor(s).

Legally issued by governments so patented inventions can inspire others and offer advantages because they are available to everyone but all proprietorship rights are reserved.

Copyrights are more limited in scope than patents. They protect the original works of authorship, not the ideas they contain. In the United States, original works include literary, drama, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. A computer program, for example, is considered a literary work and is protected by copyright. A copyright gives its owner the exclusive right to reproduce and distribute the material or perform or display it publicly. However, copyright law does permit limited reproduction of copyrighted works without the owner 's permission for “fair use” such as criticism, teaching, and news reporting. In the United States, a published work must have a copyright notice, the name

Intellectual property protects legal rights and ownership in the market place through ‘intellectual property rights’. This can include trademarks, copyright, industrial design and patens. These protect brand names, designs and inventions.

A patent is a twenty year exclusive monopoly on the right to make, use and sell a qualifying invention. This legal monopoly is considered a reward for the time and effort expended in creating the invention. In return, the invention must be described in detail to the Patent Office, which publishes the information, thus increasing the amount of technological knowledge available to the public. To obtain a U.S. patent, an inventor must apply to the Patent Office and demonstrate that the invention is new (as compared to prior technology), useful, and "nonobvious." An invention is nonobvious if it is more than a trivial, obvious next step in the advance of the technology. Software patents can be extremely powerful economic tools. They can protect features of a program that cannot be protected under copyright or trade secret law. For example, patents can be obtained for ideas, systems, methods, algorithms, and functions embodied in a software product: editing functions, user-interface features, compiling techniques, operating system techniques, program algorithms, menu arrangements, display presentations or arrangements, and program language translation methods. Since patent rights are exclusive, anyone making, using or selling the

A patent is defined as “a document issued by a government office which describes an invention and creates a legal situation in which the patented invention can normally only be exploited - manufactured, used, sold, imported - with the authorization of the owner of the patent” (World Intellectual Property Organization). Thus, a patent is a form of intellectual property. Patent infringement occurs when the defendant has violated this intellectual property, by making, using, selling, offering to sell, or importing an infringing invention or its equivalent. “For a court to find infringement, the plaintiff must show the presence of every element or its substantial equivalent in the accused device” (Wolverine World Wide, Inc. v. Nike, Inc., 38 F.3d 1192, 1199, Fed. Circ. 1994).

The protection of intellectual property is important because, without it individuals and companies would be less likely to invest their time or money in new ideas. If the company puts a lot of money into research and development of a new surgical procedure for knee replacements, it would not be fair if a different company could just use their idea. There would be no financial gain to encourage companies to spend the time and money developing new procedures.

Patents cover new inventions such as process, machine, manufacture, composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement to an existing invention . Patents represent a contract between an inventor and society. By granting 20 years market exclusivity, patents create the potential for inventors to generate high monetary returns on their successful innovations and discoveries. In exchange, the inventor provides a complete

Copyright does not protect the idea but the independent expression of the idea. In contrast to patents, copyright does not create monopolies. Instead, it allows the creator to benefit from the copyright for a period of time and prevent others taking advantage of their efforts. The Copyright Designs and Patents Act stipulates the works which is protected. There are certain requirements which must be met before copyright is granted. Firstly, it must fall into the category of works and must be original. Originality means the intellectual creation comes from the creator and has

Intellectual Property (IP): signifies creations such as inventions, literary/artistic works, designs and symbols, names and images used in commerce. IP is protected in law, whereby companies or individuals can own patents, copyrights, and trademarks, which enable people to earn recognition or financial benefit from what they invent or create. The US agency responsible for administering IP rights is the Department of Commerce US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and is responsible for issuing patents to inventors and businesses for their inventions, and trademark registrations.

A patent is an exclusive right granted for an invention, product or process that provides a new way of doing something, or that offers a new technical solution to a problem. An invention in general must fulfill certain criteria in order to be protected by a patent. For example, the Patents Act, 1970 in S. 2(1) (j) defines invention as a new product or process involving an inventive step and capable of industrial application. In other words, an invention in order to be patentable must show an element of novelty, must show “an inventive step”, and must be of practical use. Particularly, the Patents Act, 1970 defines “inventive step” as a feature of an invention that involves technical advance as compared to the existing knowledge or having economic significance or both and that makes the invention not obvious to a person skilled in the art. In other words, patent rights are not available for new advances that are merely obvious extensions or modifications of prior designs. Besides, the requirement of difference over prior art, there is a requirement to establish the extent of common general knowledge that exists while

The USPTO has been unable to keep up with its workload, resulting in major delays. There have also been questions about patent quality and increased litigation. The last time the patent system was updated was more than 50 years ago. Since then, there have been major improvements in science and technology. Recent Supreme Court decisions have made it clear that it has been easy for questionable patents to be obtained and difficult to challenge them. However, it is not up to the courts to change the law, this is a task for Congress. As Senator Leahy has stated, “[if] we are to maintain our position at the forefront of the global economy and continue to lead the world in innovation and production, we

*) the term of the patents was originally 14 years. This was amended under TRIPS obligations to 20 years