In return, the invention must be described in detail to the Patent Office, which publishes the information, thus increasing the amount of technological knowledge available to the public. An invention is nonobvious if it is more than a trivial, obvious next step in the advance of the technology. Software patents can be extremely powerful economic tools. They can protect features of a program that cannot be protected under copyright or trade secret law. Since patent rights are exclusive, anyone making, using or selling the patented invention without the patent owner's authorization is guilty of infringement.
Penalties are stiff and include triple damages.
While a patent can protect the novel ideas embodied in a software program, a copyright cannot. Copyright protection extends to the particular form in which an idea is expressed. In the case of software, copyright law would protect the source and object code, as well as certain unique original elements of the user interface. Anyone exercising any of these exclusive rights without permission of the copyright owner is an infringer and subject to liability for damages or statutory fines. The exclusive right to control duplication protects the owner of copyrighted software against the competition that would result from verbatim copying of the program's code.