Software and Patents in Europe

Name: Software and Patents in Europe
Brand: Cambridge University Press
SKU: 9780521329620
Price: 504.27 HKD
Availability: OutOfStock
Author: Philip Leith
ISBN: 9780521329620

By Philip Leith

Cambridge University Press June 2011

Specifications

ISBN-13: 9780521329620
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication: June 2011
Format: Paperback
Jurisdiction: Europe ? Countri(es) for reference only

Details

The computer program exclusion from Article 52 of the European Patent Convention (EPC) proved impossible to uphold as industry moved over to digital technology, and the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Organisation (EPO) felt emboldened to circumvent the EPC in Vicom by creating the legal fiction of 'technical effect'. This 'engineer's solution' emphasised that protection should be available for a device, a situation which has led to software and business methods being protected throughout Europe when the form of application, rather than the substance, is acceptable. Since the Article 52 exclusion has effectively vanished, this 2007 text examines what makes examination of software invention difficult and what leads to such energetic opposition to protecting inventive activity in the software field. Leith advocates a more programming-centric approach, which recognises that software examination requires different strategies from that of other technical fields.

Contents:: Introduction; 1. Software as machine; 2. Software as software; 3. Policy arguments; 4. Software patent examination; 5. Holding the line: algorithms, business methods and other computing ogres; 6. The third way: between patent and copyright?; 7. Conclusion: dealing with and harmonising 'radical' technologies.