Should software be patentable?
By I.T. WatchFox
(Picture from noticias.universia.com.ar)
It is undeniable that Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), such as patent, have been an essential mechanism to safeguard the products. Due to the emergence of highly competitive ICT industry, reserving software as a patentable intellectual property has been discussed globally in the last few decades. At first glance, I concurred that providing software patents is beneficial to our modern society, in which a majority of activities relating to daily lives relies on technology and innovation. It probably motivates programmers and investors to conduct and fund R&D for our future innovative application as their ideas would be safeguarded. Nonetheless, after having conducted an in-depth investigation, I have been persuaded that those goals seem just debatable propagandas.
In terms of legislation, it has been argued that the nature of software cannot be patented. Software is commonly created by arranging source code and algorithm which are similar to mathematics and our spoken language. Unequivocally, a group of numbers and letters cannot be patented. From my point of view, the software thus should be automatically protected by copyright as literary work. Arguably, writing various computer programs for the same application is similar to how best-seller novels are concluded with the same classic happy ending but have different written patterns and styles depend on particular authors. In other words, software is perhaps too ambiguous and complex to be justified patentable as it comprises usefulness, non-obviousness, and newness. Even the USA, who initially introduced software patent, still has faced the debate of patentability of software such as the case of CLS Bank v. Alice Corporation (See the case summary from video below)
(Video from youtube.com)
The most concerned point is that software patent has reduced innovation and R&D instead of providing with benefits to the public. I personally enjoy watching a long fight between Apple and Samsung in case of the Slide-to-unlock patent as just a dynamic in technological market, because, at least, both companies have fought for developing and contributing innovation to the public. In fact, real troublemakers in IT field are actually ‘patent rolls’ like VirnetX who intentionally attempts to collect patents as many as possible and gain main profit from suing others without conducting R&D and launching any products. Severely, most victims are often SME developers whose considerable expenses may be incurred with regard to a litigation rather than boosting their innovation.
(John Oliver pointed out issues of patent trolls leading lawsuits in the US)
(Video from youtube.com)
In respect to economics, software market tends to face a similar condition in medicine industry in which patents are influential to the development of innovation. Monopolisation of particular software patents may cause a financial burden and delay new software developers in developing innovations. The fact that new players cannot enter into the market decreases competition and limits spreading of innovation.
In my view, departing from patenting software, innovation can be motivated and safeguarded by other effective measures. For instances, promoting creative business models like freemium and strengthening software copyright. Particularly, it is time for each government to seriously revise and reform their patent regulations to resolve this chronic challenge.
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