Copyright, intellectual property and innovation Essay

Copyright, intellectual property and innovation - Essay ExampleIt can be difficult for a developer to prove a new piece of computer software package program is theirs, especially when an unscrupulous competitor starts claiming they made it, and claiming big amounts of money from the developer. Property rights are a complete nightmare for the diminished company or nondescript person who simply wants to develop software for its own sake and wishing to make a small profit while doing so. Copyright is one area of harborion that should be straightforward, but it is non. Patenting software seems a good idea, but this can be difficult, time consuming and expensive. Intellectual property rights means software has to be proven to be unique, which is not always possible at the start of a come out where such thinking may not even occur. For as the project begins, from the moment the first principle is written and an idea aired, there is the danger of theft. For the public who want to use the software, there are problems not of their making in all the property rights, such as serious time delays in get something up to date and useful for them.Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) have only been in existence since 1967, and software has only been recognised as needing protection since the late 1970s, before that it was not considered very important and was unremarkably supplied by the company who built the hardware as a complete entity. Once it was realised that software could be a separate product with its own market value, and then it started to become important to protect it.Later the type of thing that could be protected was argued over by software companies unclear as to what was in the common domain and what was completely theirs. A few years ago there was a massive argument between Apple computers and Microsoft over the use of the Trash Can in their various(prenominal) operating systems. Apple claiming their right to it as their invention and Microsoft sayi ng it was something in the public domain, needed by any operating system. The argument went