Software and patents in Europe

Author(s)

Bibliographic Information

Software and patents in Europe

Philip Leith

(Cambridge intellectual property and information law)

Cambridge Univesity Press, 2011

  • : pbk

Available at  / 3 libraries

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Note

Originally published in 2007 as hardback

Includes bibliographical references and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

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 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.

Table of 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.

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Details

  • NCID
    BB08593086
  • ISBN
    • 9780521329620
  • Country Code
    uk
  • Title Language Code
    eng
  • Text Language Code
    eng
  • Place of Publication
    Cambridge
  • Pages/Volumes
    viii, 203 p.
  • Size
    23 cm
  • Parent Bibliography ID
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