Software-related Inventions Research Articles

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.

Digital crime and crime within a digital environment: The child pornography case

The constant transition to the digital world is not simple or problem-free. Along with the remarkable progress in real time borderless communication and the broad and immediate access to any information, one cannot help but notice that delinquency and crime took their chances. Regulating cyberspace, due to its limitless nature, proved difficult and quite challenging for the lawmakers worldwide. Especially, the issue of child pornography has become one of the thorns of our times. Even though the involvement of children in pornography has been taking place for many years and in various forms, the issue only became controversial and it attracted the attention of our societies and legal regimes as soon as the Internet proliferated and software related inventions contributed in the manufacturing of child pornography. This proposal presents a brief introduction to cybercrime as defined by legal entities, addresses the controversial issue of real and virtual child pornography and proposes the involvement of social sciences in regulating the matter.

A SURVEY ON SOFTWARE PATENTS AND THEIR LINKAGE TO PROMOTING INNOVATION: INDIA PERSPECTIVE

Personal computers (PC) have significantly increased demand for mass market software. Computer software has also now become an enabler for all fields of technology; innovation is inevitable for growth of this fast emerging industry. For economic viability for such innovations, there is an increased advocacy for incorporating software as a patentable subject matter forcing countries to make computer software patentable either completely or in limited form. However, patenting of computer software related inventions have not been without its own set of controversies. Not only software patents globally are being protected under vastly divergent legal perspectives, with varying interpretations of trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS) agreement, but are also still evolving through continued interventions from policy makers and federal courts. This has led to a very broad boundary between patentable and non-patentable subject matter and has resulted in a large number of trivial inventions being accepted as patents in this area. This paper analyzes these varying perceptions as regards to software patents in different jurisdictions like United States, Europe, Japan and India. Linkage between software patents and innovation has also been attempted by taking into account historical perspectives of technological arts and their effect on promoting innovation.

Chances and Risks of the Patentability of Methods of Digital Signatures (Chancen und Risiken der Patentierbarkeit von Signaturverfahren)

The intersection of patent law with the provisions on digital signatures is characterized by two problems: the interoperability problem and the problem of conformity with a plethora of technical rules established under German law. In contrast to compulsory licensing under competition law, compulsory licensing under patent law is an appropriate means in order to solve the aforementioned problems. Further, this paper holds that it is advisable to grant compulsory licenses on the grounds of interoperabiliity problems, as currently discussed in literature. However, harmonization with Article 31 of the TRIPS Agreement is indispensable prior to the adoption of such a claim. Alternatives do not exist. Neither a reduction of the scope of patents, nor a public domain scheme that the Government can establish pursuant to section 13 of the German Patengesetz (Patent Act) in cases of emergency provide for viable solutions. Since the future European Directive on Computer-Implemented Inventions will significantly influence any regime that grants of access to computer software-related inventions, its implementation might require reconsideration of the above results.

Idiosyncrasies of the Software Development Process and Their Relation to Software Patents: Theoretical Considerations and Empirical Evidence

In Europe, the future patenting of software-related inventions has been the subject of intensive discussions for some time, since there exists a strong dispute between the supporters of the U.S. practice of allowing patents in order to increase Europe's competitiveness and the opponents postulating negative impacts of patents on the software development process. This paper presents empirical results about the idiosyncrasies of the software development process and tests hypotheses on their impact on the likelihood of patents being obstacles for software dvelopment. The paper concludes with the identification of determinants for preferences concerning different possible patent regimes in the future.

Patenting mathematical algorithms: What’s the harm?: A thought experiment in algebra

The patenting of software-related inventions is on the increase, especially in the United States. Mathematical formulas and algorithms, though, are still sacrosanct. Only under special conditions may algorithms qualify as statutory matter: if they are not solely a mathematical exercise, but if they are somehow linked with physical reality. In this article, it is argued that blanket acceptance is to be preferred. Moreover, the best results are obtained if formulas and algorithms are only protected in combination with a proof that supports them. This argument is developed by conducting a thought experiment. After describing the development of algebra from the 16th century up to the 20th (in particular, the solution of the cubic equation), the likely effects on the development of mathematics as a science are analyzed in the context of postulating a patent regime that would actually have been in force protecting mathematical inventions.

Examination of the Interrelationship Among the Software Industry Structure, Keiretsu, and Japanese Intellectual Property Protection for Software

In Japan, in contrast to its U.S. counterpart, prepackaged software sales accounts for approximately fifteen percent of software industry revenues. Customized software has dominated the software market. This article analyzes the reasons for the underdevelopment of the Japanese prepackaged segment, while conveying a realistic picture of the Japanese software industry and the impact of the changing keiretsu structure. Significantly, keiretsu software companies, most of which are players in the custom software segment, do not suffer from a financing problem, thanks to their creditworthiness, which is based on the social recognition that a key company/a main bank of the same keiretsu group will not let them go bankrupt. Although strong financial backing is crucial to innovation, especially in the investment-first and R&D-driven prepackaged software business, Japanese software companies have difficulty in obtaining financing due to poorly developed venture capital, a lack of a real NASDAQ-type market, and bank lending which focuses on real property as collateral. This difference in financial strength has created the discrepancy between the dominant custom segment and the underdeveloped prepackaged software segment in Japan. With the on-going recession, Japanese companies pay more attention to current profits and cost performance than to trade relationships with their affiliated keiretsu companies. Consequently, keiretsu software companies face severe competition both inside and outside the keiretsu. Still, they remain within the keiretsu due to their creditworthiness as keiretsu companies, but continue to diversify their trade partners more to the outside of the keiretsu. Though most of the comparatively larger software companies in the dominant custom segment are keiretsu software companies, they have not depended upon implicit contracts with customers within the same keiretsu group since the 1980s. Even when explicit contracts are executed in Japan, legislation has great significance to intellectual property protection due to the relative simplicity of contracts and the lack of case law. The Japanese laws have provided sufficient protection for software since the 1980s, and have not been significantly different from the scope of protection in the United States. This has been the case with copyright, which has played a major role in protection of software until recently. Both countries' scope of patent protection for software-related inventions overlapped with the other's in the 1980s. Though the United States had trended toward wider patent protection for software-related inventions than Japan by the mid-1990s, Japan has been following in a similar direction. However, Japanese intellectual property protection for software did not help Japanese software companies to attract investment capital. Thus, the difference in the ability to obtain financing has led to the superiority of the custom segment over the prepackaged segment in Japan. Additionally, the attitude of Japanese users and the hardware environment had an impact upon this difference as explained in footnote 7 of the article and in Rieko Mashima, The Turning Point of Japanese Software Companies, 11 BERKELEY TECH. L.J. 429 (1996).

Abstraction orientated property of software and its relation to patentability

It is often discussed that software possesses some unique properties different from other engineering products, which make it difficult to fit into the framework of legal protection by the patent law. This paper focuses on one of the salient properties of software, i.e. its orientation towards abstraction and generalization. First, we clarify the concept of abstraction in software and algorithms: what it means and how important it is. Then, we take a case study of the example problem presented at the SOFTIC Symposium '93 and show that the efforts made to write patentable claims for software-related inventions are being targeted towards the opposite of this abstraction/generalization direction. Lastly, we make discussions based on the above observations and present our opinion.

Software law — Switzerland: An introduction to software protection under swiss law

Statutory developments in this area are fairly recent. Switzerland is not a member of the European Union and has refused to join the European Economic Area (EEA). Notwithstanding this, the Swiss legislator endeavour, just as before the said refusal, to make substantial parts of the law compatible with European Community (EC) legislation. One example of this trend can be found in the developments relating to software protection, an area which was mainly framed in the new 1992 Federal Copyright Act (FCA). To give an overview of the system, this note outlines (I) the legal framework, then (II) the scope and main features of the protection under the FCA. Besides, it approaches (III) three particular issues, namely, transfer of copyright and software development, multimedia works and patentability of software-related inventions.

The case for patent protection for computer program-related inventions

Patent systems have been created to stimulate the evolution of existing and the creation of new industry by protecting the industrial application of innovations. The computer software industry needs that stimulation as much as any other industry. All systems of intellectual property protection are available to be used to protect computer programs recognizing their limitations. Copyright does not provide protection for the innovative functional features of a computer program beyond the specific expression of the program code of these features. Trade secrets are subject to contract and have no impact on third parties. The European Patent Office is granting patents, not for computer programs as such, but for computer software-related inventions which meet the requirements of novelty, inventive step, industrial application and make a contribution to the computer industry either in the technical problem to be solved by the invention or in the technical effect achieved by the invention. The vast majority of European patents are being granted to non-European applicants and as a consequence the European Software Industry is likely to find itself being dictated to, by for example Japanese and United States interests, rather than playing its part in the international expansion of the industry. To ignore the existence of patents for computer program-related inventions can only be to the detriment of the future of the European Computer Software Industry.

Patent protection for software in Israel

At first glance, US and Israeli law would appear to permit patent protection for all inventions that involve processes, including those involving software. Certainly, other technical processes or procedures, such as chemical or mechanical processes, have been eligible for patent protection in the US and Israel. US patent law states that whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, may obtain a patent therefor. Israeli patent law states that an invention, whether a product or process, which is new, useful, and useable in industry or agriculture and includes an inventive step is a patentable invention. However, in Israel and the US, software and software-related inventions have traditionally been viewed as ineligible for patent protection because of software's resemblance to human thought processes. This has been based primarily on the desire to avoid placing legal restrictions on truly mental processes, such as mathematics. Since the early 1980s, though, US courts and the US Patent and Trademark Office have taken a new approach by favoring patent protection for software-related inventions. The Israeli patent Registrar, however, seems to be wavering between the old and new approaches.

Intellectual property protection for multimedia application. 2. Putting the pieces together

In its recently published guidelines (60 Fed. Reg. 28778, June 2, 1995), the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) said computer software programs stored in a tangible medium, such as a floppy disk, are patentable and must be examined to determine whether the substance of a computer-program related invention is a significant advance over prior technical achievement justifying the grant of a patent. In the past, the PTO had simply refused to examine the substance of such an invention. The PTO attributed its new approach to recent decisions by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, which decides all patent appeals, favoring the patenting of software-related inventions. The paper discusses the items affected and considers multimedia applications. >

The EPO search documentation in the face of software related inventions

Software related inventions being not simply excluded from patenting — as confirmed by the recent amendments of the EPO Guidelines — the question arises whether DG1 should adapt its search documentation in order to enable such inventions to be properly searched. As a matter of fact, the question concerns only the non-patent literature (NPL), mostly articles from journals and conference proceedings, because these documents are only selectively classified for inclusion in the search documentation — whereas patent documents are all systematically classified and included — and besides, software matters are rarely dealt with in the present patent literature. In view of the foregoing, the paper illustrates the importance of non-patent literature for search purposes and considers the selection criteria for articles and for the collection of technical journals.

The EPO search documentation in the face of software related inventions

The results of our new photometric observations of the main-belt asteroid 4332 Milton are presented. These observations were obtained on two successive nights in August 2012 at Çanakkale University Observatory. The bimodal light curve amplitude and period were determined to be 0.16 ± 0.01 mag and 3.295 ± 0.005 h, respectively.