The lecture started with a guest lecturer Dr. Esther Luzzatto ( http://www.luzzatto.com). She talked about what Intellectual Property is and the process of filing patent request.
From the knowledge management perspective (per my understanding) patents are used to provide a legal coverage and protection for the owners of the knowledge to use and benefit from it without need to worry about the knowledge being stolen and/or used by someone else. This protection is given for a limited amount of time, and during this time the owner is supposed to cover all the expenses that were invested into R&D and hopefully profit.
There is no arguing that patents are needed and are very important, but it feels that while they provide all the above, they are also impairing the creative processes and innovation.
Now, I know I have to explain myself…
There is a saying that all “new” is a forgotten “old”, but I think that sometimes it is also “new” done right.
My examples are mostly based on a small company named Apple 
Apple and Samsung, while being partners, are battling for the last few years about the patents with each other and it seems that they use the patents not to preserve own knowledge, but to impair other company profit and development.
Apple is known for taking someone else's ideas and improving them to perfection (touch, voice control…), but it seems that when other company tries to release a product that has even a hint of Apples patented feature – they do not spare any effort or money to fight it.
So, why is it bad (and ugly)?
Isaac Newtons quote “If I have seen further it is by standing on ye sholders of Giants”, would probably been much less meaningful if the giants would not let him stand on their shoulders…
I’m basically saying that there is no innovation without reuse, and with current pace of development we would need a lot of innovation (and reuse) to keep going. The question is only when the patents will become more damaging that useful.
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