 |
Software Patent AttorneysSelect a State Arizona l Arkansas l California l Colorado l Delaware l Florida l Georgia l Iowa l Kansas l Kentucky l Louisiana l Maine l Maryland l Michigan l Minnesota l Missouri l Nebraska l Nevada l New Jersey l New Mexico l North Carolina l Ohio l Oregon l Pennsylvania l Rhode Island l South Carolina l Vermont l Virginia l Washington l Washington DC l West Virginia l Wisconsin |
Software patent debate
Arguments commonly given in defense of software patents or in defense of the patentability of computer-implemented inventions include the following (counter-arguments are indicated by successive bullet points):
Patenting software inventions promotes investment in research and development.
The basic principles of patent law were developed before computers were invented, to promote the development of traditional useful arts, such as engineering and chemistry. Supporters of software patents argue that inventions in the software arts are the same, in principle, as inventions in these other areas. Patents, therefore, should have a similar impact in promoting investment in research and development.
A patent must publicly disclose the invention and so educate the public and advance the state of the art of the invention. Thus patents accelerate software development by making previously unknown and not obvious software inventions public.
Patents must disclose how to make and use an invention in sufficient detail so that other persons of ordinary skill in the art of the invention can make and use the invention without undue experimentation. Furthermore, patents are only valid if the inventions they disclose were not known by the public prior to the filing of the patent application, or if the inventions were not obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art at the time the patent application was filed. (US laws are somewhat different from other countries. In the US the focus is on when the invention was made, not when the patent application was filed).
The time delay between when a software patent application is filed, and when it becomes public is 18 months. This too slow to be of value in advancing software development. Furthermore, the format in which software inventions are disclosed in patents (plan language text, flow charts, line drawings, etc.) is not particularly useful. Copyleft publications by contrast, provide much more useful disclosures (functional source code) at a much faster rate (immediate publication).
Organizations should be able to protect their intellectual property.
Copyright is not always sufficient to protect the underlying function in a computer program and copying must be proven. Patents are therefore an essential part of the intellectual property framework.
Software patents can cover aspects of an invention that are arguably more appropriate to cover in copyright. Strict limits should therefore be placed on what aspects of software can and cannot be granted and such limits are not in place (US) or are not clearly defined (Europe)
Protection for software by patents is already sufficiently limited
Inventions (including software) can only be patented in Europe if they provide a non-obvious "technical contribution". This reduces the chance of patents being granted on mere algorithms with no technical effect or the granting of "trivial" patents with no inventive step.
Other countries such as the US, Australia and Japan do not have the same limits on software patents and this puts pressure on Europe to expand the scope of protection.
Reference > Wikipedia
