On Monday 19 November 2007 17:31:26 Andy wrote: > What? Software became patentable in the UK, damn I missed that one.
Yes, software gets patented in Europe, including the UK, and has been for many years. For software to be patentable it generally has to sit inside a system and affect something outside that system. The patent is normally couched in terms of the system and the effect on that system, which in practice that means pure software implementations suffice as well. This is particularly true in the signal processing domain where a significant number of patents are expected to have a hardware implementation, but clearly can be implemented in software. The hardware patent is usually couched in such terms which allows for a software implementation to be covered by the patent. (Usually using language like "A further embodiment of the ...") The following two links ... http://www.ipo.gov.uk/patent/p-applying/p-should/p-should-requirements.htm http://www.ipo.gov.uk/policy/policy-issues/policy-issues-patents/policy-issues-patents-computer.htm ... are worth reading if you think *no* software is patentable... For example, Microsoft's patent application on an "isnot" [1] operator in basic probably wouldn't be patentable in the UK, but is the _sort_ of thing that could be patented in the US. (ignoring all other aspects of said application... :) [1] http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220040230959%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20040230959&RS=DN/20040230959 (aside: tinyurl.com appears to be down :-) ) Incidentally this reality of software patents is (part of) why Kamaelia & Dirac both use the same licensing scheme as firefox (Mozilla tri-licence). The reason is due to the explicit patent grant, should the code merge any code which is covered by a patent. See also: http://dirac.sourceforge.net/faq.html#a6B Michael. [ Personal note: I don't like software patents because (aside from anything else) I personally feel that they run counter to the purpose that patents were created for. ] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
