There are quite a few trends in patenting and intellectual property when it comes to recent years in the mobile and computing industry. As with other intellectual property rights such as exist for various art forms, both software and hardware can be patented and considered to be intellectual property for creative purposes.
The purpose of patents
The purpose of patents and intellectual property is for all basic intents and purposes to allow the original creator of the product to benefit from receiving financial compensation for his or her work for a fairly limited time period. Nobody should be expected to work for free, but the basic premise of the law is to guarantee that once an idea has had some good traction, it become open for exploitation by competitors so that innovation and development can be fostered.
In recent years we have seen increasing litigation regarding patents and infringement, involving companies such as Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, Apple, Google and Sony. In many cases what happens is that open source development tools are used and incorporated into a company’s methods so much so that because of poor record keeping and data maintenance code is unintentionally or in some cases deliberately used without permission.
How to protect your ideas
If you are developing software or hardware, it is important to keep good records of all of your processes. Code that you develop should be annotated and sourced wherever necessary appropriately. You should always have your legal team verify any new licenses that are adopted into your software and you should ascertain that all of your coders have appropriate sensitivity training towards intellectual property.
How mobile devices can help you
Mobile computing devices such as iPhones, Androids and tablet devices have risen in popularity over the last few decades as businesses were able to go more mobile due to better technology. Nowadays, your entire development process from concept to patent to product can be diligently tracked and recorded instantly, with wireless technologies used to update all relevant information centrally. This cuts down on administration time and in the long run deters legal issues as with live, diligent tracking of processes, it is more likely that infringements will be noted early and corrected.
In the long run then, when considering the gravity of the cases that have been on trial and the awards handed out to companies who were found to be victims of infringement it makes perfect sense to invest in proper record keeping procedures with mobile devices.
Irene Perlog is a dedicated writer at VPNServices.net, where she writes vpn reviews on providers like Hidemyass (only objective and original reviews).
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