Legal update Patenting database marketing software

Abstract

As with many other areas of the law, whether a patent actually covers a program for a computer is not necessarily a simple question. The European Patent Office (EPO) was thought to have granted over 30,000 software-related patents by February 2002 2 and a more recent estimate puts the figure at 50,000-all of which, it has been suggested, have a potentially questionable legal basis. 3 It is therefore unsurprising that several years ago the European Commission proposed a Directive on the patentability of computer implemented inventions, 4 the principal aim of which was to clarify the law in this area. What perhaps came as more of a shock was the fervent debate 93

Software patenting in a state of flux

“…This was far from the case when the author last assessed the situation. 2 The remainder of this paper assesses whether there has been any improvement.…”