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UK: Software And Business Methods Not Patentable
horza writes: "The conclusion of the UK government consultation on whether software and business methods should be patentable, as they are in the US, are that software and business methods are not patentable. Britain will be pushing for the EU directive to match UK law."
The reward for coming up with a successful business practice is ... drum roll... success. If you are RELYING on the fact that you have an artificial monopoly in your particular business niche, it simply means you can't compete.
If the UK won't grant it, then they'll just take their business elsewhere.
You don't understand the concept. If these practices aren't patentable in the UK, then patents made elseware aren't enforcable to UK buisnesses either. So UK buisnesses (and any others that decide to re-locate to the UK) are free to use "one click shopping" or "floatable toolbars" in whatever they want, with no fear of repercussions. I would think this will be a big boon to buisness in the UK.
No actually it does support the concept of no software patents. Think of it in legal speak and what is currently happening.
A patent can be granted in the US if the process that is happening in software is an old process, but not in software. And a patent can be granted for "frivoulous" innovation because the line for innovation has not been clearly drawn.
What this phrase is saying is that, software by default are not patentable. However, if you have something that is REALLY innovative then yes software can be patented. What this means is that before you can patent or receive a patent, you better have a DAMM good idea.
To a degree the American system is worded like this, but the problem has been that the court system moved the line towards frivoulous patents. This is good because the UK patent system has drawn a line to the correct side.
In today's cut-throat economy, businesses need every competitive advantage they can muster.
If their business method is so bad-assed that they want a patent, they shouldn't NEED a patent to help them out: They will dominate the market because customers like what they do. Business methods don't usually involve a lot of money to think up, just to implement. I could think up Amazon's business method (let people easily buy books online) while sitting on my couch, but it takes a hellava lot of money and effort to actually do it.
What I can't do is to patent that (intangible) idea. Thus another company could come along and create a program that did the same as mine, AS LONG AS THEY DON'T USE MY CODE DIRECTLY, i.e. it is a 'clean room' implementation, and it would be perfectly legal.
IMO this is a good thing since it means that a) I have the advantage since I created the program first, and b) I and the other company must compete on the merits of our code.
As another poster pointed out, this is precisely the opposite of what companies like Microsoft do.
In once sense, what you're saying is right, since it strikes to the heart of what patents are for: the hard part is the research and development effort required to turn an idea into a working product, and it is this effort that is protected by the patent.
But on the other hand, the problem with software patents is precisely the difficulty in drawing this distinction. It's not at all clear if an implementation is not just a detailed expression of an idea. Basically, if a patent contains a detailed explanation of something (say, my new-fangled B-crap-tree database file structure) through the use of diagrams, UML, or whatever, and no source code, than I've merely expressed the idea in detail and have not given the details of how I implemented it. But if it goes all the way to the level of source code, it's really too particular to be useful as a patent, because anyone can change the structure of their program and implement basically the same thing without stressing their R&D effort too much.
I guess all this does is suggest that answering the question of what constitutes patentable software is an in principle hard question. The same is true of anything, but I think it's a particularly hard balance to strike with software, and hence the difficulty of writing regulations and standards that a government agency will have to abide by.
--- I've been in school *way* too long....
Software patents are abhorrent to me insofar as all patentable software is pure math (algorithms - data like text and graphics are copyrightable expressions, but not patentable). To patent software is to grant a government-enforced monopoly on a set of mathematical operations to a person or group.
Yes, that means if you perform or cause to be performed a set of mathematical operations that someone else has patented, and are discovered, men with guns will come and stop you. Only the patent holders (and licensees, if applicable) are allowed to do this math; because it's a patent, it doesn't matter if you derived these mathematical operations independently or not.
It's hard for me to articulate the degree to which I feel this represents an unconsionable hindrance in the advancement of human understanding. What does society gain by having the government say who may perform what mathematical operations by beaurocratic fiat?
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.