A patent can best be conceived of as a quid pro quo arrangement (i.e., a contract) between society and an inventor. Society makes the following offer to the inventor: “If you teach us how to make and how to use your invention, as well as the best mode in which you practice your invention, we will in exchange grant you a right to exclude all others from practicing your invention for a fixed period of time” (i.e., a temporary monopoly).
The inventor is thought to benefit from this arrangement in two distinct ways. First, the inventor is no longer required to expend valuable resources concealing/defending his invention from the public out of fear that someone might “steal” his invention and thereby reap the rewards of his own hard labor and investment. Such defensive activities may include, for instance, hiding the invention in a basement, locking the invention in a safe or secure room, spending additional time in job interviews attempting to find only those employees who will “guard the inventive secrets with their lives,” making employees sign non-disclosure agreements and other such legal instruments, or designing and adding physical mechanisms in the product which serve only to conceal the inventive step from the public. With a patent, however, the inventor is made secure with a temporary monopoly that is backed by the force of law. Thus, if anyone within the U.S. were to make, use, sell, offer to sell, or import his claimed invention during his patent term (even if these parties acted innocently and did not actually “copy” his invention) , the inventor can take legal action against each of these parties and thereby prevent the infringing activity from continuing. Second, the inventor may derive substantially more revenue under the temporary monopoly than he would if he were to continue practicing his invention in secret (because without a patent, the inventor would have no legal recourse against a competitor who independently conceived of the same invention, or who otherwise discovered how the invention worked by reverse engineering it).
Society is also thought to benefit from the patent system in two distinct ways. First, the patent system is believed to encourage more innovative activity. That is to say, without legal protection, potential inventors may be deterred from dedicating resources to building inventions due to the fear that that someone could later “steal” their inventions and thereby reap the reward of their own hard labor and investment (note: copying an invention gives a competitor an advantage because it is usually a lot easier and less expensive to copy someone’s else working model than to create a working prototype from scratch). Without adequate legal protection, potential inventors might not even bother attempting to invent something in the first place. However, if potential inventors know that they will be made secure with a temporary monopoly that is backed by the force of law, they may no longer be deterred by the threat of theft, and as a result, society as a whole will benefit from increased inventive activity. Second, it is thought that society benefits because inventors will be continually adding to society’s knowledge base by disclosing their own inventions to the public (disclosure is one of the legal requirements for obtaining a patent). Once these ideas have been disseminated to the public, anyone in the public can then educate themselves as to how these inventions work by reading an inventor’s corresponding patent disclosure. The public can then refine these inventions further by making subsequent improvements to them, or otherwise create a new invention altogether by integrating one inventor’s idea with another. It is thought that over time, society as a whole will benefit from technological improvements which would have not have been possible without the type of “knowledge-sharing” that the patent system provides.
The inventor is thought to benefit from this arrangement in two distinct ways. First, the inventor is no longer required to expend valuable resources concealing/defending his invention from the public out of fear that someone might “steal” his invention and thereby reap the rewards of his own hard labor and investment. Such defensive activities may include, for instance, hiding the invention in a basement, locking the invention in a safe or secure room, spending additional time in job interviews attempting to find only those employees who will “guard the inventive secrets with their lives,” making employees sign non-disclosure agreements and other such legal instruments, or designing and adding physical mechanisms in the product which serve only to conceal the inventive step from the public. With a patent, however, the inventor is made secure with a temporary monopoly that is backed by the force of law. Thus, if anyone within the U.S. were to make, use, sell, offer to sell, or import his claimed invention during his patent term (even if these parties acted innocently and did not actually “copy” his invention) , the inventor can take legal action against each of these parties and thereby prevent the infringing activity from continuing. Second, the inventor may derive substantially more revenue under the temporary monopoly than he would if he were to continue practicing his invention in secret (because without a patent, the inventor would have no legal recourse against a competitor who independently conceived of the same invention, or who otherwise discovered how the invention worked by reverse engineering it).
Society is also thought to benefit from the patent system in two distinct ways. First, the patent system is believed to encourage more innovative activity. That is to say, without legal protection, potential inventors may be deterred from dedicating resources to building inventions due to the fear that that someone could later “steal” their inventions and thereby reap the reward of their own hard labor and investment (note: copying an invention gives a competitor an advantage because it is usually a lot easier and less expensive to copy someone’s else working model than to create a working prototype from scratch). Without adequate legal protection, potential inventors might not even bother attempting to invent something in the first place. However, if potential inventors know that they will be made secure with a temporary monopoly that is backed by the force of law, they may no longer be deterred by the threat of theft, and as a result, society as a whole will benefit from increased inventive activity. Second, it is thought that society benefits because inventors will be continually adding to society’s knowledge base by disclosing their own inventions to the public (disclosure is one of the legal requirements for obtaining a patent). Once these ideas have been disseminated to the public, anyone in the public can then educate themselves as to how these inventions work by reading an inventor’s corresponding patent disclosure. The public can then refine these inventions further by making subsequent improvements to them, or otherwise create a new invention altogether by integrating one inventor’s idea with another. It is thought that over time, society as a whole will benefit from technological improvements which would have not have been possible without the type of “knowledge-sharing” that the patent system provides.
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