Richard Gallafent

London

Patent Attorney

I doubt HP or anyone else who has invested in patents will cheerfully lend them, but if a startup has an invention, you can materially increase interest from others by seeking to patent it. Even if ultimately you are unsuccessful, that won't be known for some time, and in the interim you may well have been able to use your idea to gain some respect, or even cash!

The big boys in the industry may have the financial muscle, but they have no monopoly on bright inventive ideas. If you have one, try and protect it, because if you don't you will have no bargaining chips once news of it escapes, and everyone can then copy the idea for free - not the programme as this would infringe copyright - but the idea. The only way to control the use of technically inventive ideas is by way of the patent system, and it's tough that you have to file before you disclose (save for the USA) if you are to secure protection, but that's the system we have at present and to ignore it may be philosophically attractive, but it's unreal.

The "software patents" debate is set to run and run, but while there is no clarity, there is everything to play for, and software inventors should not be deterred from patenting just in case things turn out to be adverse for software patents at some unspecified time in the future. If you've had a good invention, perhaps by then you won't care!