Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and beginning April 20th, 2021 (Eastern Time) the Yahoo Answers website will be in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.

What are your Opinions on Patents?

I am doing an essay on Patents and would love some feedback. Also how do patent issues apply for software?

4 Answers

Relevance
  • pmt853
    Lv 7
    9 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    In the UK patents do not apply to software which is protected by copyright - which is an automatic unregistered right. On balance I think patents are a good thing because they help ensure that the rewards for new products or processes go to those who devised them, or to those they sold the rights to. In exchange for a monopoly on the right to produce or import into the UK the owner of the patent (often not the inventor) has to pay fees to the Intellectual Property Office and make a full disclosure of the invention. The full disclosure is often helpful to others who make incremental improvements.

    Source(s): www.ipo.gov.uk
  • 9 years ago

    Maybe start with the premise that patents are for the general good of the public, where the inventor is enticed to disclose inventions to the world in exchange for a limited monopoly on the commercial rights. This accelerates innovation as other inventors do not have to re-invent everything, and they can either license existing patents or try to engineer new ways to do the "same thing" without violating the patents of others. Compare with "trade secrets" that do not get published and so nobody knows what it does, how it does it, or how to make one.

  • John
    Lv 7
    9 years ago

    The other answers are good. I'll say that I don't agree that patents on software - as opposed to copyrights - are good for anything but the software developer. Same for patents on genetic engineering. I won't go on and on, and it's only one POV, but I don't think it's healthy for society or innovation at all. I'm not alone in these thoughts. I believe that patents should be reserved for "hard" things - electronics, bicycles, auto parts. Just my opinion but, again, I'm not the only one.

  • Anonymous
    5 years ago

    Here you will find a step by step guide which will hopefully give you a better and deeper insight into how it is possible for you to make money from Binary Options trading https://tr.im/4Lj0I

    You will first need to know what exactly Binary Options trading is, whilst this may seem like common sense many people just have a vague idea of what is involved and the exact risks attached to any trade, so make sure you fully understand the difference for example between actually buying a fixed asset and trading in Binary Options as the two could not be more different.

    Next you will need to become something of an investigative journalist when you start trading in Binary Options and by this we mean you need to have a nose for a news story that is going to have a dramatic effect on whatever it is you intend to trade, and one way for you to do this is to keep fully abreast of all the daily financial news stories as this is the only way you are going to be able to make an informed decision on the movement of any Binary Options you are trading.

Still have questions? Get your answers by asking now.