Patent Trolls

A patent is basically a way of preventing anyone from stealing your ideas and making money off of it without giving credit where it is due. It's almost like plagiarism in the sense that if you get caught, you price to pay is in the most literal sense, too high. A patent ensures that if some other than you or your company creates or copies your invention, they have to compensate you or pay for using your design/invention. My understanding of patents is that they are used to promote creativity, as in one of the goals of granting patents is to get inventors and designers to compete and to invent many different kinds of gadgets or in our case, software, that aide in the performance of meaningful tasks. For example, a company created a software for commercial aircraft that uses the aircrafts thrust to maneuver the plane and even land it in the event of a loss of the primary flight controls.

I think that the idea of patents is cool, but I happen to think that they can be a hinderance too. Just like any other system, it can be exploited as we have seen patent trolls do. Before I get into that, I think socially that patents can deter most people from wanting to create or invent new software or gadgets. I say this because of this, engineers like to solve problems no matter how big or small they are, if the problem has already been solved and there's no other way to solve it, it can deter people from wanting to find a new way to solve that same problem or even streamline the already existing system. Patent trolls can also deter people from wanting to invent new things as well. It's like jumping into the water knowing that the sharks are circling, just waiting for fresh meat to be dumped in. These patent trolls exploit the system so that they can earn money, they don't do anything but provide deterrents for people wanting to invent and patent anything. This doesn't provide any kind of social, economical benefit to anyone but the trolls themselves. All their goal is, is to prevent other companies from becoming successful by taking enough money from them to cause them financial trouble so that they can make money. This does not provide to the collective knowledge anything that we do not know. If there are people who are going to threaten to sue them over their product, then why would anyone be motivated to make anything? I'm sure there are plenty of people who have great ideas and great products out there, but due to the threat of patent trolls, they are too cautious to pursue a patent for their product. Overall I believe that patents overall are a good concept, it is not a perfect system, but with some refinement and re-working, the patent system can be improved so that no one would have to fear patent trolls. Patents will be good overall for social benefit and also economical benefit.