Is Patent the Appropriate Software Protection Mechanism?

Is Patent the Appropriate Software Protection Mechanism?
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Is patent the appropriate software protection mechanism?
The idea of whether a patent is an effective software protection mechanism has elicited controversial debates among the major stakeholders across the world. According to Siegel & Suchenek (2018), software patent is an intellectual property right that safeguards a program or any performance of a computer from other computer programs. While copyrights were originally designed to protect expressions, software patents protect inventions, author as well as promote improvement.
According to Tran, (2015), Software patents protect any program, design or process that meets certain requirements according to its inventiveness, practicality, appropriateness, and effectiveness. An issued patent prevents other parties from creating, utilizing, marketing or trading the patented invention in other countries or the domestic market. For example, Apple patented the “bounce-back” iOS feature that prevents other Android companies from using this concept of the user interface in their products. Similarly, Google has several patents on its PageRank system that prevents other competing firms such as Yahoo, Excite and AltaVista from copying Google search algorithm.
Although patents are designed to safeguard the inventor and stimulate innovation, it is evident that patents for software do not. In reality, sometimes software patents hinder innovation and be harmful to the independent inventor (Tran, 2015). Today, the software patent system is no longer a protection against violation but rather a weapon in the arsenal of non-practicing entities as well as large organizations. Currently, the increased number of non-practicing entities can be rooted to the increased software patents (Levine, 2015). Typically, patent system only protects large corporations who can afford the litigation process against...