Patent Protection of Software and Hardware in Australia - IT and Business Fraud | Desklib

This report discusses the patent protection of software and hardware in Australia, its technical, social and legal aspects. It also covers the Apple vs Samsung patent case and the impact of patent protection on the IT and business industry. Course code and college/university not mentioned.

BIT244: IT and Business Fraud
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Executive Summary
Copyrights, patents and circuit layout rights are the major types of official protection for the
computer associated intellectual property in Australia. The patent law, the copyright and trade
secret have all been a part of the Intellectual property (IP) protection regimes that was released in
the early 60's to protect companies from wrongful infringement from the foreign as well as
National companies. The evolution is the technology has been the greatest in the last five
decades than it had ever been throughout the history of mankind. It has been made great and
giant toward the future in terms of the technological advancement and futuristic ideas. Present
study deals with the discussion of patent protection of software and hardware as well as
jurisdiction related to it. Patents have the ability to protect through a patent. At current days,
computers are complicated systems with the subsystems that are assembled together for
functioning hardware as well as software functions are challenging. A patent will enforce legal
right for the procedure and devices that the creation needs to be innovative as well as useful for
granted patent. Present report focuses on patent protection of software and hardware. In addition,
Australian Patent System is discussed in the report.

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Table of Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................................3
Patent Protection of Hardware.............................................................................................3
Patent Protection of Software..............................................................................................5
Apple vs Samsung...............................................................................................................6
Technical aspect of Patent...................................................................................................7
Social aspect of Patent.........................................................................................................8
Legal aspect of patent..........................................................................................................9
Conclusion.........................................................................................................................10
References..........................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
From the early days of the internet, it is rapidly advanced our technology towards IoT
(Internet of Things) enabled appliances and home where AI (artificial Intelligence) could also be
integrated in the future. It has been left far behind the idea of semiconductor, which was the
primary component of most, the embedded system and have moved on to more sophisticated and
complex hardware structure which has also resulted in shifting the major focus from these
hardware to the software component. It can be seen that due to wide array of scope and
implementation ideas of these technology be it in Smartphone sector or other software as well as
hardware, many companies have been established to hop on the enormous opportunity that these
sectors provide.
Patent Protection of Hardware
Brian and McNamara (2007) stated that physical devices perform in an improved method
over the previously recognized devices that can be patented. The components of a computer
such as hard disks, keyboards and monitors with upgraded framework are able to patent. For an
instance, a hard disk has upgraded format or design of data that results in increasing data storage
as well as fast accessing that can be patented.
Apart from the different computer and tech related IP, the major focus of our report will
be based of specifically patent protection of Software as well as hardware around the world. The
present patent laws that came into effect in the 60s to 80s were the need of the hour for many
tech companies around the world to protect their product from wrongful infringement (Trappey
et al. 2017). This allowed the company to have a patent in their name that would restrict the rival

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from using them without giving financial gains to the patent companies if that was written in
their patent clause. This also enabled the companies to demand capital from the rival firm if they
used the product.
In addition, this has resulted in a very competitive environment throughout the world
among the various multinational tech companies that are always eager to invest in the ideas that
could enable them to overtake their business rivals (Bhargava, Reese and McAfee 2015). Many
do succeed in doing so, but the vast amount of companies that is there also means that even if
there is such an innovative idea floating around the space, it would not take the rival firm to
make a copy of it and use it for their self financial gains (Raichstein et al. 2017). This is where
the idea of patent laws and protection comes in which enable these tech companies to stop the
rival firm to make a replica of their innovation and use them as one of their own.
The patent protection act of hardware was much less complex and sophisticated than the
software one (Kaluzhny et al. 2018). The hardware need to pass through few test that different
from country to country and are properly analyzed by the expert if there is a possibility of any
availability of these hardware. Then they are patented and are the protected under the various
Intellectual property rights of different countries. The hardware component can be patented in
any country without much hassle as the uniqueness in most of the cases is visible to the public,
apart from these, the underlying embedded design could also be understood to give more
protection to the hardware from any infringement (Stevens et al. 2015). These laws do safeguard
the interest of the individual owners or Multinational companies. Hence, it is important to take
appropriate actions regarding the process and mitigate the barriers that obstacles to get potential
results.

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The patent protection on this hardware also serves these companies a great deal in terms
of gaining royalty of their product from other similar companies that might have liked the
hardware and wanted to use and integrate these hardware in their product. For example, OLED
technology that is widely been seen as the best Television quality has been patented by the
Eastman Kodak Co. where Ching W Tang along with Steven Van Slyke were the principal
inventors. This OLED hardware component is seen in most of the high-end TVs in today's world
(Trollope et al. 2015). They receive their royalty by various companies that uses their hardware
technology in their product. On the other hand, it is important to focus on the patent protection of
software involved with the system.
Patent Protection of Software
In Australia, the patent laws allow multiple set of software in order to gain patent
protection. Innovations of software need to be helpful in industry. For an instance, a procedure of
solving a particular mathematical question utilizing software is not patentable. The software
codes are not patentable. However, it is copyrightable.
There is a lot of controversy involved involving the patent of software all around the
world. The reason for this is the wide range of acceptability norms that is considered while
analyzing the patent protection in case of software (Cox and Red Hat Inc 2016). The algorithm
of any software is very difficult to be patented through various IP laws around the world. There
is also a scenarios in which most of the patent protection is done by the giant Multinational
companies to continue their dominance and financial hierarchy over the small IT companies
(Kumar et al. 2017). This is done widely to stop other smaller enterprises to continue on their

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software, even when many times it has been analyzed that these are mere idea that might not be
fully developed.
This patent protection provides the investor confidence in the companies to invest in the
startups (Lee et al. 2018). The patent system was established so that the owner of the product or
software could continue doing the research without having to worry about the infringement of
his/her ideas and product.
Apple vs Samsung
The patent case between the top phone companies in the world began in the year 2011 in
which there was a ruling of the case in favor of Apple of $1 Billion. This case was because of
much number of designs of the iOS and various utility patents filed by Apple and Samsung.
These included many different functions of the Smartphone such as home screen grid, tap to
"zoom". These allegation most of which was found to be true by the jury and Samsung was
notified to pay the above stated amount to Apple (Pearce 2018). Later, down many years when
rehearing of the case was filed by Samsung, the compensation amount came down to $539,
which could be seen as a loss to Apple. The bulk of the matter is that, even after fighting for over
half a decade, both of the companies cared less about the money that was involved in the matter
rather was more inclined toward their reputation (Saha et al. 2016). There was another utility
patent battle that was again filed by Apple on its feature of "slide to unlock". This case was also
seen as a loss to Samsung that had to pay $120 Million to Apple for wrongful violation. There
were also many other lawsuit that was filed by both these companies internationally which
through mutual understanding was dropped in the year 2014.

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It can be clearly analyzed by the example of these two giant tech companies that this
patent protection does serve a purpose and can be used very efficiently by various companies
around the world to protect their patent and also issue an unwritten warning to its rivals against
any wrongful infringement (Durham et al. 2016). The criticism of these companies can also alter
their investors and shareholder, which can have a serious impact on the company financially.
Technical aspect of Patent
In Australia, there are two types of patents such as:
1. Standard patent
2. Innovation patent
Standard patent
An invention is provided in long-term protection as well as control by the standard
patent. It takes nearly 20 years from the date of starting. The claimed invention needs to be
brand new and requires fertile step as well as able to be generated or utilized in the industry. The
steps of inventive steps need to be different from the existed technology. The standard patent
needs to meet the administrative demands. However, IP Australia recommends the process of
getting help from professional aspect in order to apply for patent.
The most underlying important dimension of patent is that is does encourage technical
innovation in many ways. There are mainly four steps that are involved in any technology
innovation, invention, RD&D to developing the product based on the market and the final being
market or commercial diffusion. Then there is concern over the ownership rights of this

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technology that is always an issue the future scope of the invented technology is seen as
profitable to other firm, they could try to copy the tech for their personal gain.
This is protected under the IPR that can give not only ownership rights to a company but
can also be made use of by individual innovator (Kumar et al. 2016). This IPR can give
exclusive right to its inventor which not only gives personal satisfaction to contribute to the
technological advancement of the world, it also brings many willing investors to the table to
invest on the technology so that it could capture the commercial space of the respective sector.
These patent protections are usually done along the research and development (R&D) stage of
the technology, which is sometime done to encourage more and more investor to invest in the
technology. Therefore, there is a wide range of technical innovation that could be sought if the
product gets patent protection. Furthermore, technical aspect of the patent is significant to
analyze in the sector research and development sector. Analysis of the aspects would be helpful
to obtain potential advantages. In a short market life, the innovation patent is considered as the
best option for patent protection (United Nations 2007). Thus, the place of invention will be
replaced through a newer invention that is useful and computer-based creations for development
of IT industry.
Social aspect of Patent
Many times, there have been cases round the world in which the patent protection has
been seen as a catalyst for any ongoing development in the society. This is because of the
blockade it provides to its owner to protect their product from any anti-social or profit seeking
entity. This patent protection system can be considered as an adjunct with respect to the market
and its sector. Patent protection provides startups to carry their product in the local as well as

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international without facing any issues of its authenticity if it has a patent for the various
products (Troyansky et al. 2015). There is also no discrimination that is faced with any patent
product even in the international market that makes them unique in their own ways.
Legal aspect of patent
Jurisdiction is defined as the official authority for making legal decisions and judgments.
The information flow rises concerns across the world in order to enforce as well as protect
intellectual property rights that consist patents, trademarks as well as copyrights (Australian
Government 2006).
The patent laws around the world are governed through the IP laws respective to that
country. These laws encourage and empower innovator to use this in order to secure a patent in
hardware as well as a software that they deem to be fit to be secured from outside involvement
with its core technology (Kumar et al. 2017). From many decades, the legal system in the US as
well as Australia has made the tech industry more competent and innovative through its use of
various Intellectual Property rights. There are many processes in successful application of patent
in the hardware as well as the software industry.
The product is first categorized from the different type of patent that are available
according to the core technology i.e hardware or software, utility patent or design patent, after
which the concerned authority will have to confirm if that product has been patent to any other
entity locally as well as in the foreign countries to avoid any future dispute. This stage is also
important in various aspect, it becomes clear in the successful completion of the product that the
given hardware or software is authentic (Gossler et al. 2018). After this, the company or

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individual applies for the patent in their respective countries that are mostly done through law
firms in Australia and US.
Conclusion
Hence, here is a different aspect of patent system that should also be analyzed for proper
understanding of the subject. Many times it has been seen that the big companies use the patent
protect for blocking technological innovation in that sector by the medium or small companies.
There are certain loopholes in the IP laws in many countries that are used by these bigger
companies to their advantage. It is important to understand various aspect and implication of the
patent protection laws and the reason it has become so instrumental in the innovation of various
path breaking and evolving technology.

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References
Australian Government 2006, Patents for computer-related inventions, IP Australia, Australia,
viewed 18 August 2018, <
Bhargava, R. and Reese, D.P., McAfee LLC, 2015. System and method for network level
protection against malicious software. U.S. Patent 8,938,800.
Brian J. McNamara 2007, Patent and Copyright Protection for Computer Hardware and
Software, Foley & Lardner LLP, viewed 15 August 2018
Cox, A., Red Hat Inc, 2016. Rights management system. U.S. Patent 9,286,445.
Durham, D.M., Sahita, R.L. and Dewan, P., Intel Corp, 2016. Hardware enforced memory
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Gossler, T., Huber, M., Liebs, N., Rusitska, M. and Thäle, M., Siemens AG, 2018. Method and
arrangement for computer-assisted representation and/or evaluation of medical examination
data. U.S. Patent Application 10/092,213.
Kaluzhny, U. and Tasher, N., Winbond Electronics Corp, 2018. Bus protection with improved
key entropy. U.S. Patent Application 10/037,441.
Kumar, S., Hughes, C.J., Kundu, P. and Nguyen, A., 2017. Hybrid hardware and software
implementation of transactional memory access. U.S. Patent Application 15/299,452.
Kumar, S., Hughes, C.J., Kundu, P. and Nguyen, A., 2017. Hybrid hardware and software
implementation of transactional memory access. U.S. Patent Application 15/477,052.

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Kumar, S., Hughes, C.J., Kundu, P. and Nguyen, A., Intel Corp, 2016. Hybrid hardware and
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Lee, J. and Kim, J., Georgia Tech Research Corp, 2018. Hardware-assisted log protection
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Pearce, J., 2018. Sponsored Libre Research Agreements to Create Free and Open Source
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Raichstein, E., Smith, J.P., Tevis, G.J., Van Hise, D.G. and Oren, W.O.L.F., International
Business Machines Corp, 2017. Automated and self-adjusting data protection driven by business
and data activity events. U.S. Patent 9,632,875.
Saha, B., Adl-Tabatabai, A.R. and Jacobson, Q.A., Intel Corp, 2016. Handling precompiled
binaries in a hardware accelerated software transactional memory system. U.S. Patent
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Stevens, J., Absolute Software Corp, 2015. Offline data delete with false trigger protection. U.S.
Patent 9,154,499.
Trappey, A.J., Trappey, C.V., Govindarajan, U.H., Chuang, A.C. and Sun, J.J., 2017. A review
of essential standards and patent landscapes for the Internet of Things: A key enabler for
Industry 4.0. Advanced Engineering Informatics, 33, pp.208-229.
Trollope, R., Cidambi, C., Adam, L. and Dickson, C.L., Symantec Corp, 2015. Techniques for
providing protection against unsafe links on a social networking website. U.S. Patent 8,949,981.
Troyansky, L., Bruckner, S. and Hubbard, D.L., Websense Inc, 2015. Method and system for
protection against information stealing software. U.S. Patent 9,015,842.

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United Nations 2007, Information and Communication Technology Policy and Legal Issues for
Central Asia, United Nations, viewed 15 August 2018.