The software patent debate

Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice

Volumn 1, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 196-206

  González, Andrés Guadamuz ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH   (United Kingdom)

^b Intellectual Property and Technology Law

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 85076730249     PISSN: None     EISSN: 17471540     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/jiplp/jpi046     Document Type: Article

References (70)

1. Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and the Council on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions, COM[2002] 92, http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/indprop/docs/comp/com02-92en.pdf.
2. There are various definitions of software. That preferred here is US Code Title 17, ch 1, s 101 which defines a computer program as 'a set of statements or instructions to be used directly or indirectly in a computer in order to bring about a certain result'.
3. FFII, European Parliament says No to Software Patents (2005), http://wiki.ffii.de/Ep050706En
4. J Dunn, 'Defining the Scope of Copyright Protection for Computer Software' [1986] 38 Stanford Law Review, 497.
5. E Gratton, 'Should Patent Protection Be Considered for Computer Software-Related Innovations?' [2002] 7 Computer Law Review & Technology Journal 2, 223.
6. R Widdison, 'Software Patents Pending?' [2000] The Journal of Information, Law and Technology 3, http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/elj/jilt/2000_3/widdison/.
7. DW Carstens, 'Legal Protection of Computer Software: Patents, Copyrights, and Trade Secrets' [1994] 20 Journal of Contemporary Law 13.
8. JC Philips, 'Sui Generis Intellectual Property Protection for Computer Software' [1992] 60 George Washington Law Review 997.
9. Harmonized in Europe through the Council Directive 91/250/EEC on the Legal Protection of Computer Programs, OJL 122/42. Also see Computer, Designs and Patents Act 1988, s 3(1) b.
10. This idea is not new: note, 'Copyright Protection of Computer Program Object Code' [1983] 96 Harvard Law Review 1723.
11. For more about the dichotomy, S Ang, 'The Idea-Expression Dichotomy and Merger Doctrine in the Copyright Laws of the US and the UK' [1994] 2 International Journal of Law & Information Technology 2, 111.
12. eg D Luettgen, 'Functional Usefulness vs. Communicative Usefulness: Thin Copyright Protection for the Nonliteral Elements of Computer Programs' [1996] 4 Texas Intellectual Property Law Journal 233;
13. LL Weinreb, 'Copyright for Functional Expression' [1998] 111 Harvard Law Review 1149.
14. Most recently Cantor Fitzgerald International v Tradition (UK) Ltd [1999] Masons CLR 157.
15. Whelan Associates Inc v Jaslow Dental Laboratory Inc [1987] FSR 1.
16. Computer Associates International, Inc v Altai, Inc (2nd Cir 1992) 61 USLW 2434. In short, this test abstracts all the elements found in the computer program, filters out the unprotectable ones and then compares what is left to search for similarities.
17. John Richardson Computers Ltd v Flanders and Chemtec Ltd [1993] FSR 497;
18. Ibcos Computers Ltd v Barclays Mercantile Highland Finance [1994] FSR 275.
19. Navitaire Inc v easyJet Airline Co [2004] EWHC 1725 (Ch).
20. WR Cornish and D Llewelyn, Intellectual Property: Patents, Copyright, Trade Marks & Allied Rights (5th edn, 2003) 173-207.
21. Diamond v Diehr 67 L Ed 2d 155 [1981].
22. Amongst others Paine, Webber, Jackson & Curtis Inc v Merril Lynch, Pierce, Fenner Smith Inc, 564 F Supp 1358 [1983];
23. In re Alappat, 33 F. 3d 1526 [1994].
24. eg software patent applications had increased by 16% per year from 1986 to 1997; J Bessen and RM Hunt, An Empirical Look at Software Patents, Research on Innovation Working Paper 03-17/R (2004) http://www.researchoninnovation.org/swpat.pdf.
25. VICOM [1987] 2 EPOR 74;
26. Merrill Lynch's Application [1989] RPC 561;
27. Gale [1991] RPC 305;
28. Fujitsu [1997] RPC 608.
29. In VICOM, T208/84.
30. Contrast, eg VICOM with Fujitsu.
31. IBM, T0935/97, 5.2.
32. A Duffus, 'The Proposal for a Directive on the Patentability of Computer-implemented Inventions' [2002] 16 International Review of Law, Computers & Technology 3, 331.
33. eg criticisms FFII, EU Software Patent Directive Core Amendments [2003], http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/europarl0309/cons0401/tab/index.en.html.
34. Some reasons for this opposition can be found here: A Guadamuz, 'Legal Challenges to Open Source Licences' [2005] 2 SCRIPT-ed 2, 163.
35. EPO, Examination Guidelines (June 2005), s C, Ch 4, 2.3.6; s C, Ch 4, 2.3.6.
36. United Kingdom Patent Office, Should Patents be Granted for Computer Software or Ways of Doing Business? (March 2001), http://www.patent.gov.uk/about/consultations/conclusions.htm.
37. United Kingdom Patent Office, The European Computer Implemented Inventions Directive-Report on the Technical Contribution Workshops [2005], http://www.patent.gov.uk/about/ippd/issues/eurocomp/full_report.pdf.
38. Halliburton Energy Services, Inc v Smith International [2005], EWHC 1623 (Pat).
39. Halliburton v Smith (n 48 above) paras 215-218.
40. CFPH LLC Application [2005] EWHC 1589 (Pat).
41. United Kingdom Patent Office, Patents Act 1977: Examining for Patentability, 29 July 2005, http://www.patent.gov.uk/patent/notices/practice/examforpat.htm.
42. European Parliament, Debate: Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions, 6 July 2005, http://tinyurl.com/8op7z.
43. It is difficult to obtain actual data. According to FFII the EPO has approved more than 20 000 software patents (http://swpat.ffii.de/patents/stats/index.en.html). According to the United Kingdom Patent Office, of about 30 000 applications received each year, 20% are related to software, see http://www.patent.gov.uk/about/ippd/issues/cii-ukposition.htm.
44. JP Kesan and M Banik, 'Patents as Incomplete Contracts: Aligning Incentives for R&D Investment with Incentives to Disclose Prior Art' [2000] 2 Journal of Urban and Contemporary Law 23.
45. BL Smith and SO Mann, 'Innovation and Intellectual Property Protection in the Software Industry: An Emerging Role for Patents?' [2004] 71 University of Chicago Law Review 241.
46. M Valimaki, 'A Practical Approach to the Problem of Open Source and Software Patents' [2004] 26 EIPR 12, 523.
47. For more about standard-setting bodies and IP, see RP Feldman, ML Rees, B Townshend, 'The Effect of Industry Standard Setting on Patent Licensing and Enforcement' [2000] 38 Communications Magazine IEEE 7, 112;
48. C Shapiro, 'Navigating the Patent Thicket: Cross Licenses, Patent Pools, and Standard-Setting' in J Lerner, A Jaffe and S Stern (eds), Innovation Policy and the Economy (2001), p. 119-50.
49. It has been well established that pharmaceutical and chemical industries are more likely to have innovations due to patents, while other fields are not as affected. E Mansfield, 'Patents and Innovation: An Empirical Study' [1986] 32 Management Science 175;
50. and A Silberston, The Economic Importance of Patents (1987).
51. For more details about this, see S Weber, The Success of Open Source (2004).
52. R Bakels and B Hugenholtz, The Patentability of Computer Programs. Discussion of the European-Level Legislation in the Field of Patents for Software (2002) JURI 107 EN, p 17.
53. Computing Technology Industry Association, SME Manifesto on Patents for Computer-Implemented Inventions (April 2005), http://www.softwarechoice.org/download_files/SME_manifesto_0105.pdf.
54. RJ Mann, 'Do Patents Facilitate Financing in the Software Industry?' [2005] 83 Texas Law Review 961, 1009.
55. For more on this, see Bakels and Hugenholtz (n 72 above) 25; P Tang, J Adams and D Paré, Patent Protection of Computer Programmes, European Commission Report (2001).
56. PbT Consultants, The Results of the European Commission Consultation Exercise on the Patentability of Computer Implemented Inventions (July 2001), http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/indprop/comp/softanalyse.pdf.
57. R Hart, P Holmes and J Reid, The Economic Impact of Patentability of Computer Programs, European Commission, ETD/99/B5-3000/E/106 (2000), p 3.
58. eg the arguments presented here (http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/dangers/index.html).
59. J Bessen, Patent Thickets: Strategic Patenting of Complex Technologies (2003) SSRN Working Papers, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm? abstract_id¼327760.
60. K Eischen, 'Software Development: An Outsider's View' [2002] 35 Computer 536, 38.
61. Listed here (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/index.php).
62. J Lerner and J Tirole, The Scope of Open Source Licensing (2003) IDEI Working Papers 219, pp 13-14.
63. B Perens, Software Patents v Free Software, http://perens.com/Articles/Patents.html.
64. Bakels and Hugenholtz (n 72 above) 26-27. Also R Stallman, Software Patents: Obstacles to Software Development (25 March 2002), http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/-mgk25/stallman-patents.html.
65. According to Greg Aharonian, by 2003 there were 200 000 software patents, of which 120 000 are invalid (http://wiki.ffii.org/Greg040706En).
66. A Jaffe and J Lerner, Innovation and Its Discontents (2004), p 202.
67. Examples abound: a patent for the MP3 format (EP0287578); the infamous Amazon One-click patent (EP0927945B1); one that covers fuzzy logic operations (EP0488694); and one for object code applications (EP0527213). For more patents, see http://swpat.ffii.org/patents/samples/index.en.html.
68. For more details about the project, see http://www.videolan.org.
69. The letter can be found here (http://www.ffii.org/%7Ezoobab/libdts/).
70. H Meeker, 'Open Source: The Sky Is Not Falling', Linux Insider (4 July 2005), http://www.technewsworld.com/story/44367.html.