Is there a fair use for patents? Should a patent be licensed at a reasonable rate based on use? Is there a fair use for patents? If so what would be the fair use? Also should a patent be made available at a fair rate. Can a patent holder block use totally or indirectly by demanding unrealistic royalties?
No. (Therefore no). Not necessarily. Yes. Is there a fair use for patents? No. "Fair use" is a affirmative defense for copyright infringement. The issue is that patents cover an design, idea or methodology, while copyright covers an "artistic" work. For example, if he were alive and working today, van Gogh would have copyright over his collection of paintings. If he developed a special paintbrush to make his distinctive style, he could patent the design for that brush. There is no obligation to make a patent available, much less at a "fair rate". And there is no obligation for a patent holder to make their patent available (so yes, they can block you directly or indirectly). There are various rationales for this. One is that a patent holder's historical reward for producing a new invention, a furtherance of common knowledge, is that that individual would receive an exclusive monopoly on the manufacture and sale of that invention. Often, this would serve as a way to recoup investment in new development and an incentive to experiment and expand the knowledge base of a country. This arrangement in the modern day is most closely represented by the exclusive license agreement, in which the licensor (in this case the patent holder) agrees to not only give the licensee the legal right to use the patent holder the legal ability to use their patent, but also agrees to limitations in what other people are granted that legal ability, in exchange for compensation.
Yes That is very simple - copyright is an exclusive right that starts automatically with the creation of a copyrightable work. The default situation is that the author has an exclusive rights to make copies of the work and derivative works. If the code is published somewhere by the author but the author has not said anything about its licence or copyrights, then the default situation applies - you need permission and you don't have it, so it's not legal for you to distribute their copyrighted works. They have the right to just publish it somewhere, others don't. If you try to contact the author and they don't say anything and ignore you, then the default situation applies - you need permission and you don't have it, so it's not legal for you to distribute their copyrighted works. If it's impossible to find the author (e.g. I have certain cases with literary works where it's not clear who inherited the rights after the author died), then the default situation applies - you need permission and you don't have it, so it's not legal for you to distribute their copyrighted works. That being said, certain forms of reuse (recreating ideas, learning from them, etc) would not be a copyright violation. But in general the situation with the author not saying anything is almost the same as the author explicitly stating "all rights reserved, you're not allowed to do anything, violators will be shot" - some specific uses are allowed even against author's wishes (e.g. 'fair use' clauses) but everything that needs their permission really does need their explicit permission.
No. Copyright does not have exemptions for obsolete works, use with credit, or non-commercial use. Depending on the purpose for the distribution, this could be fair use, but it is unlikely that a court will consider this fair use when the only reason is for other people to be able to play games. Perhaps you could try contacting Adobe; it's possible that they will give you a license to distribute the Flash Player. This isn't directly relevant to the legal aspect of copying Adobe's Flash Play, but to answer the underlying issue of legally playing Flash games, perhaps you/others could try Gnash, a libre reimplementation of Flash. I have not used it, but apparently Gnash can run some Flash software without using Adobe's player.
Some MP3 technologies are still under patent in the US: you can read the wiki page on that matter to see if it is applicable to what you intend to do. This assumes you write your own code – if you use someone else's conversion software, that would depend on the licensing terms for the software.
Once thwe molecule and its use have been published, that becomes prior art, and no other person can patent this. Whether the original researcher can seek a patent, or is precluded by his or her own prior disclosure, I think depends on the exact facts. I know that in some cases, disclosing an invention to the public waives any claim to a patent.
Patents become enforceable when granted, not before. However there is something called provisional rights (absolutely nothing to do with provisional applications). In the US, under 35 USC 154(d), if a claim in a published application is “substantially identical” to a claim that eventually issues, a patent owner can get damages of at least a reasonable royalty on units produced between the publication and notice and the issue date. Enforcement on this must await the granting of the patent. The infringer must have actual notice of the published application. It is rarely invoked see this article.
No, you cannot ever legally use copyrighted property without a valid license from the copyright owner. It is understandable that when government restrictions prevent people from licensing intellectual property, people will turn to piracy and black markets to obtain them. However, whenever you find yourself in a region where you can legally license the property, you are (presumably) also in a region where intellectual property rights are respected, and it is illegal to use the property without a proper license from the owner. I.e., the fact that you paid a pirate for a copy – even where that was the only option to obtain one – does not give you a license. You have to obtain a license from the owner.
“Fair Use” is a (US) copyright concept: it has no relevance to Trademarks. A Trademark may also be subject to copyright, for example, the word Google is a trademark but it is not copyright - the Google logo is both a trademark and subject to copyright. You infringe a trademark when you use it in such a way that people think that your goods and services are their goods and services. You don’t infringe a trademark when you use it to actually refer to them or their goods and services- that is what trademarks are for.