Software Inventions Research Articles

The Disclosure Requirements of Software Patents: Suggestions for Developing Countries

This is a research study of available options of Intellectual Property (IP) protections for software in the present IP systems, in most of the countries including copyright and patent protection. Each type of IP protection has its own advantages and limitations like enablement of subject matter for registration requirements, scope of rights conferred and period of protection etc. The trends and demands of software industry for the grant of patents protection for Computer Implemented Inventions (CIIs) were also discussed. The present research paper discusses a best mode of technical disclosure, more than an algorithm, of software patents and additional recommendations are also given as a solution to the technical problem of a suitable IP protection for software. A sui generis IP protection was suggested as a best option for a composite IP protection covering all aspects of advanced software inventions.

How patent rights affect university science

Abstract How do intellectual property rights influence academic science? We investigate the consequences of the introduction of software patents in the United States on the publications of university researchers in the field of computer science. Difference-in-difference estimations reveal that software scientists at US universities produced fewer publications (both in terms of quantity and quality) than their European counterparts after patent rights for software inventions were introduced. We then introduce a theoretical model that accounts for substitution and complementarity between patenting and publishing as well as for the direction of research. In line with the model’s prediction, further results show that the decrease in publications is largest for scientists at the bottom of the ability distribution. Furthermore, we evidence a change in the direction of research following the reform toward more applied research.

3D printing, artificially intelligent robots and software inventions, is technology shaking the reign of IP law.

Intellectual property (IP) rights have always had difficulties to cope with disrup-tive technologies. Development of AI-implemented works and common use of it pushes the boundaries of IP protection. Increase of machines which can inde-pendently act or create things have posed a numerous concern of patent system such as how will the inventive step, prior art, inventorship and technical contri-bution evaluated. Nevertheless, the grey area is how patent holders will protect their rights on products against direct and indirect infringement which can also made by 3D printers. This article analyses that the question of is the current pa-tent regime sufficient to evaluate software-implemented works, 3D printing and Robotics to detect potential infringements and reaches the conclusion that it does not seem to be answered affirmatively based on current regulations. This article argues that some legal regulations should be done to overcome the uncertainty of AI generated works’ protection scope

DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A SECURITY SYSTEM VIA UML: SMART DOORS

<p><em>Companies or estate have problems stealing employees of items or records by using common keys because the usual key is less reliable. This paper seeks to control intelligent doors by means of a RFID card. In addition, a security system was created for employee entrances and exits with a system-specific server and may allow staff to open a particular door and specify a time for RFID card operation. The design and implementation of a robust and intelligent system were thus designed to control an employee's or a person's entry and exit through the use of an intelligent key and smart doors.</em><em> </em><em>This paper proposes the safety improvement plan based on the Smart Door Lock System for the security problem caused by the physical key in unmanned automation machines, like ATMs, KIOSKs and sales machines. The use of hardware and software inventions to construct this program was an effective factor.</em></p>

Patent Protection and Software Innovation: Evidence from Alice

Software innovations make up a cornerstone of the digital economy. The scope of their patent protection and the social and private value of software patenting are central to recent policy debates in the United States. The landmark 2014 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Alice v. CLS Bank had a profound impact on software patenting, drastically narrowing the scope of patent protection on software innovations. Using Alice as a natural experiment, we found that narrowing the scope of software patents had no detectable downside for the value of software firms. Instead, it was associated with improved sales, a greater degree of open-source engagement, and a narrower scope of individual patents. Findings from this research note add to the software patent literature and offer renewed evidence of the roles of patents for software innovations in the digital economy. They also have compelling implications for patent policies on software and software-related inventions, such as artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, and other emerging digital innovations.

Issues to Consider Before Asserting A Software Patent

Software patents have garnered a lot of attention in recent years due, at least in part, to the proliferation of software-enabled devices, such as smartphones and tablets, and the use of software to control a range of devices from automobiles to kitchen appliances. Enforcement of software patents involves unique legal issues that should be considered before asserting a patent against an accused infringer. A primary issue to consider is whether the patent claims are still patent-eligible under recent changes in the law. Also, certain types of software patents are vulnerable to attack in U.S. Patent Office proceedings, but these proceedings are not available unless the patent owner takes step to provoke them. In addition, software inventions are often implemented as method patents, which have unique requirements and restrictions that should be considered. For example, steps of a method patent must all be performed by an accused infringer in the United States and must all be performed by the same entity (or under the direction or control of that entity). Where a software invention is not implemented as a method patent, pre-suit damages may not be available unless the patentee's own products are properly marked with the patent number, and software has very different requirements for marking than more tangible products. A careful consideration of each of these issues is essential before moving forward with a lawsuit.

미국 특허법상 소프트웨어 발명의 특허대상적격성

미국 특허법상 소프트웨어 발명의 특허대상적격성

Is the Supreme Courtts Patentable Subject Matter Test Overly Ambiguous? An Empirical Test

In four cases handed down between 2010 and 2014, the Supreme Court articulated a new two-step patent eligibility test that drastically reduced the scope of patent protection for software inventions. Scholars have described the test as “impossible to administer in a coherent, consistent way,” “a foggy standard,” “too philosophical and policy based to be administrable,” a “crisis of confusion,” “rife with indeterminacy,” and one that “forces lower courts to engage in mental gymnastics.” This Article provides the first empirical test of these assertions. In particular, 231 patent attorneys predicted how courts would rule on the subject matter eligibility of litigated software patent claims, and the results were compared with the actual district court rulings. Among other findings, the results suggest that while the test is certainly not a beacon of absolute clarity, it is also not as amorphous as many commentators have suggested.

ENHANCEMENT OF BACKWARD COMPATIBILITY IN SOFTWARE COMMUNICATION ARCHITECTURE (SCA) STANDARDS AMONG SCA COMPLAINT SOFTWARE DEFINED RADIOS (SDR)

Since World War-II, world is developing newer communication radio continuously by spending efforts, money and assets. After digital communication systems are invented, the development is rapidly progressing at every country. With globalization in mind, country-to-country starts interacting with each other and begins to share their radios too for operations. In military-to-military contact, there exists a problem of incompatibility of radios between friendly countries. With the Software inventions and mathematical processor improvements, Software Defined Radio (SDR) started appearing in both military and commercial world. We explore the SDR and suggest some Universal standards in Software Communication Architecture (SCA) which can be followed for mitigating the interoperability problem. With SCA-compliant-SDR, the radio can be reconfigured with high flexibility for multi-band-multi-mode capability with maximum portability.

A successful software patent [Patent Reviews

Recently the US Supreme Court, in "Alice Corporation v. CLS Bank International," defined a two-step process for determining if a software claim is eligible for patenting. The first step is to determine whether the claim is directed to a patent-ineligible concept, such as an abstract idea. Other ineligible concepts are laws of nature and natural phenomena, but software's ineligibility usually arises from a finding of abstractness, so this will be our focus. If it is found that a patent claim is directed to an abstract idea, the second step is to determine whether the elements of the claim, both individually and as an ordered combination, transform the claim into a patent-eligible application. Surviving the analysis of the US Supreme Court's decision in 'Alice' does not complete a patent's journey to success. It must also pass the other tests for patentability. In another recent decision, "Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corporation," the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found that claims to a logical model for a computer database did not conflict with the Alice test for abstractness. For software patentees, amid a flurry of bad news, decisions like 'Enfish' provide hope that, perhaps, some software inventions can continue to be patented.

Embodied Software: Patents and the History of Software Development, 1946-1970

In the late 1960s, attorneys and programmers used the term software' in reference to a patent-drafting technique for software inventions. This strategy consisted of claiming a computer in which a program served as the control system instead of claiming the program itself. If the application was successful, this machine would receive patent protection in lieu of the program. This article argues that the histories of embodied software and software patenting are constitutive of, and inseparable from, one another. It traces the origins of embodying software to Bell Laboratories in the late 1940s and studies the flowcharting program Autoflow to illustrate how and why firms embraced this technique. The history of embodied software demonstrates that software patenting predated the birth of the software industry, and it invites a revision of how we account for the history of software patents.

Criterion for Judgement on Patent-Eligibility of Computer Software Invention in accordance with U.S. Case Law

Criterion for Judgement on Patent-Eligibility of Computer Software Invention in accordance with U.S. Case Law

Patentability of Software Inventions

Software is very expensive to develop but very inexpensive to copy. Just by copying a software you create an exact duplicate of the original software and all with the same functionality. There is no difference between the original (which is bought) and the copy (pirated). The worse is when the source code is copied. The copier can even claim to have developed the software where the credit of the developer might go. The software developers use various methods to protect their source code such as copyright, trade secrets etc. but each having limitations. The developers are keen on finding legal frameworks to protect their investments. While copyright law protects expression, Patenting software inventions can protect the infringement of patent claims. However, most small to Medium Developers don't get the benefit of patenting because of its expenses. This article describes what types of software inventions are patentable and the scope of patent laws in software patenting in different countries.

The Revised 40 Principles for Software Inventions

Applying 40 Principles is one of the earliest and most popular techniques of TRIZ. There are no controversies on application of 40 principles by any of the TRIZ schools. Although they are fundamentally sound, there is some difficulty in applying those in software related problems. As they were originally developed for mechanical or technical problems, the meaning of many terms like 'thermal', 'aerodynamic', 'hydrodynamic', 'ultrasonic', 'infrared', 'temperature', 'liquid', 'gas' etc. are embarrassing in a software context.This article reviews the 40 principles in the context of software industry and rephrases the principles and their applications to make them suitable for software problems. This article can be used as a valuable reference for all TRIZ researchers and software inventors.

Subjecting Software Subject-Matter to Limitations that Matter

This paper addresses the patent eligibility of software inventions by providing a historical journey through the various software Court cases and proposing a novel construct as a method for analyzing and determining patentability of software inventions. Briefly, this construct relates to mapping the hardware resources, e.g. CPU, RAM, memory, power supply, etc. that mirror the actual execution of the software program as a way of satisfying various requirements that caselaw has struggled with over the years for software inventions.

Rethinking Patent Eligibility for the Modern Scientific Age

As reflected in the Federal Circuit’s fractured opinion in CLS Bank v. Alice Corp., there is no greater confusion in contemporary patent law than that surrounding the scope of patent eligibility limitations. This Supreme Court amicus brief in that case traces the roots of the court-made doctrines excluding patents on laws of nature, physical phenomena, and abstract ideas. It argues that a test of inventive application neither serves the underlying purposes of the patent system nor comports with the process of modern technological advance. As a result of advances in scientific understanding and methods over the past 150 years, many if not most inventions today explicate, manipulate, and control physical, chemical, biological, and digital phenomena at elemental, molecular, algorithmic, and systemic levels. Doctrines that treat conventional application of even newly discovered computer algorithms, molecular pathways, and chemical synthesis as unpatentable threaten to exclude much of the inventive thrust of modern research. Mayo’s requirement for unconventional application shifts scientists’ efforts from the valuable scientific and technological advances that society seeks toward surmounting an amorphous test of non-obvious implementation. Specific and practical application, in conjunction with the technological arts limitation explicated in Justice Stevens’s concurrence in Bilski, would better serve as the test for patent eligibility in the modern scientific and technological age.Particularly in light of past experience, setting inventive application as the test for patent eligibility threatens to undermine invention incentives, hamper patent prosecution, and greatly complicate patent litigation. While recognizing that the problems posed by patents on software and other computer-implemented inventions are real, this brief contends that patent eligibility doctrines beyond requiring specific application and categorical exclusion of business methods and other non-technological processes are poorly suited to address those concerns. It therefore concludes that the Supreme Court should turn away from the Funk Brothers/Flook/Mayo paradigm, and instead focus on elucidating the statutory requirements of patentability. By clarifying the constitutional and jurisprudential foundation for subject matter exclusions, the Court can promote legislative and administrative solutions that more directly address the evolving needs of the patent system.

Improved Cosmesis in Early Breast Cancer Using Conformal Radiotherapy

Improved Cosmesis in Early Breast Cancer Using Conformal Radiotherapy

Software Inventions and Issues of Patentability

Software inventions have increased dramatically as software industry is growing and has become important for global economy. Accordingly, software claims need drafting carefully in order to properly protect the invention claimed in a software claim. In earlier days, Freeman-Walter- Abele protocol happened to be the test to judge the patentability of software claims. Additionally, meaningfulness of algorithm or formula was tested and usefulness was the central issue in some instances. However, this approach has been shifted and machine transformation test and transformation of data to data has taken place to analyse as to whether transformation data requires machine or not. In other words, the patentability standard has been raised by the patent office for inventions relating to software. While on many occasions, software claims are held to be non-statutory due to one or another reason, a type of claim called Beauregard claim which claims computer readable medium, has been discarded by a Federal court decision. This paper identifies and addresses aspects of litigation issues including software claims and advocates the best approach to be adopted in order to avoid rejection from patent offices and courts in view of decided cases.

Patents, Thickets and the Financing of Early‐Stage Firms: Evidence from the Software Industry

Legal changes in the patentability of software since the mid 1990s have resulted in a substantial increase in the number of patents on software inventions. We focus here on the impact of transactions costs associated with patent “thickets” on new entrants' interactions with the capital markets. Using data on the financing of entrants into 27 narrowly defined software markets, we show that start‐up software companies operating in markets characterized by denser patent thickets saw their initial acquisition of VC funding delayed relative to firms in markets less affected by patents after the mid 1990s. The relationship between patent thickets and subsequent financing activity such as IPO or acquisition is more complex, but there is weak evidence that firms without patents became less likely to go public if they operated in a market characterized by patent thickets. Firms with patents are more likely to be funded or experience a liquidity event. However, the application for a patent appears to matter more than its grant.

Bilski: Assessing the Impact of a Newly Invigorated Patent-Eligibility Doctrine on the Pharmaceutical Industry and the Future of Personalized Medicine

The patent-eligibility doctrine serves a gatekeeper role in excluding from patent protection natural phenomena, principles of nature, abstract ideas, and mental processes. Beginning around 1980, the U.S. patent system embarked upon a pronounced expansion in its definition of patent-eligible subject matter, particularly with respect to software and business method inventions, but also in the life sciences. In recent years, however, we have seen a backlash, with many critics from the public and private sectors arguing that the threshold for patent-eligibility needs to be raised in order to ensure that patents fulfill their constitutional objective of encouraging innovation rather than impeding it. The courts and PTO appear to have heard these critics, and have begun to actively rein in the scope of patent-eligible subject matter. This shift in the swing of the patent-eligibility pendulum will likely have a profound impact on the patentability of innovations arising out of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, particularly those relating to diagnostics and personalized medicine. In this article, I discuss the current status of the patent-eligibility doctrine, how it is that we got here, and what the future might hold, particularly for the life science industries.