Patents (Reading13-lgrazios)

 From the readings, patents grant owners exclusive rights over their invention over a certain period of time. Some economical reasons for granting patents are that patents promote innovation, because inventors are highly motivated to innovate and have new ideas if they don’t have to worry about their idea being stolen or copied and therefore not gaining anything out of it. Some ethical or moral reasons may be that inventors who put a lot of hard work and effort in their inventions don’t get ripped off or cheated out of their ideas. In my opinion, some patents are good for the inventors out there, but for society in general it is probably best if patents aren’t granted at all. Maybe there should be different systems so that the inventor can gain money out of his invention and not block other people from innovation and improving his idea. I believe that patents are not beneficial or necessary for society, they only block and hinder innovation. Take for instance the example presented in the podcast “Episode 551: The case against Patents”, they mention what happened with the Wright brother and how the plane they invented only flew in a straight line and their patents didn’t allow other people in the US to improve their idea until planes closer to the ones we use today were invented in France. I believe the same thing for software patents not only because they have the same effect as regular patents but also because they technology industry, and software is too fast for patents to take effect, and therefore they are usually not effective another reason is how the people who work at the patent office have little to no technical experience, and don’t understand software. Another thing that demonstrates how the patent system is broken is the existence of patent trolls, patent trolls are people of organizations that get multiple vague patents in random things and then try to look for companies that do stuff that overlaps with their patents and sue them. The issue with these kinds of people is that they use patents to halt innovation and don’t even innovate themselves. This is just proof that the system doesn’t work, so it should either change of be taken down.