Legal Protection of Computer Programs by Patent Law — Comparative Study of Trends

摘要

The analysis of what has happened and what is happening regarding the patentability of software can be summarized by two approaches. The first is a change in strategy for those seeking patents for computer programs by changing the vocabulary describing their inventions in order to obtain the patent. The second refers to future claims. The issues will be the same as those presented after the first generation of cases that afforded protection to computer programs by copyright, when the focus was no longer whether the computer program were eligible for protection, but rather what the level of protection was and the limitations of that protection.