Ethical Issues in Software Patent Law: A Comparison Between the US and UK :: Argumentative Persuasive Papers

Ethical Issues in Software Patent Law As Seen in Comparison Between the US and UK1. IntroductionThough it is often overlooked today in favor of its counterpart digital medication protection, bundle system content protection is an extremely serious issue, and numerous clamber that it has the potential to stunt the growth of technology if it is mishandled. The debate concerns parcel plagiarization (often simply using a program you didnt actually brook for), and the proper sanctioned protection that should apply to such software programs. repayable to space constraints, I intend to confine our discussion here to an overview of the software obvious and copyright issues in the United States and the UK two of the worlds most advanced countries with widespread software development and use, and therefore prominent potential for misuse. And as no treatment of this issue can be complete without a look at its ethical ramifications, I go away finally propose a solution to the softw are protection problem, and resign it with ethical as well as pragmatic motivations.2. Systems Today there are two primary legal means of protecting mavens software today copyrights and patents (trade secrets are really a depart category, simply involving keeping your code secret, and provide no real legal protection). The difference between copyrights and patents is that copyrights (traditionally applicable to printed matter and documents) apply automatically just contain limited protection, while patents (applied to unique business processes, etc.) give pro abundanted legal protection but must be granted. Copyrights have long been the only accepted method of protection of software, which was viewed as more alike(p) a printed document than a business process the thinking of many was (and still is) that, Patents cover unique processes and functions, but since virtually all software is derivative, patent protection seems inappropriate for software programs. Copyright protection may be more suitable since it does distinguish between ideas and their expression. However, the extent and reaching of that protection is unclear1What this means is that copyrights can be got most (at least theoretically, rewriting a program in a varied way to do exactly the same thing would not wear a copyright on the original program) and while patents are overmuch more restrictive, it is unclear when exactly a patent on a piece of software is justified, resulting in an opportunity for abuse by patent applicants. To get a more substantive picture of the state of software protection today, we will take a closer look at relevant law in the United States, and compare it to the protection before long offered in the UK.