With the penetration of digital technology into every aspect of society, these laws have been severely undermined and rendered virtually obsolete. There is fierce debate within the corporate world and the courts over which laws, copyright or patent, apply to computer software, and to what extent they protect the individual or company which produces a program. Mega-corporations are battling the issue out in a global scramble for markets and profits. Billions are at stake in the outcome of the legal controversy. The two most common types of intellectual property are patent and copyright.
Patent is the right to make, use or sell a particular application of an idea.
A patent does not mean the right to own the principles upon which an invention is based but the novel, non-obvious and useful application of those principles. Similarly, copyright is the right to make copies of a particular expression of an idea. A copyright does not give an author ownership of the subject matter, but rather, his particular way of explaining this material. An author who writes a book on the Civil War has a copyright to his unique verbal creation, not to all books about the subject. The boundaries within which intellectual property is recognised are much more difficult to establish than ownership of tangible property.