Fisher, Matthew --- "Software-related inventions" [2020] ELECD 19; in Aplin, Tanya (ed), "Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and Digital Technologies" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020) 277

Book Title: Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and Digital Technologies

Editor(s): Aplin, Tanya

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Section: Chapter 13

Section Title: Software-related inventions

Author(s): Fisher, Matthew

Number of pages: 25

Abstract/Description:

This chapter examines the vacillating patentability standards that have characterised courts’ treatment of software-related inventions under patent law in Europe and the US. Despite starting from opposing legislative bases – one specifically excluding computer programs when claimed as such and the other containing no explicit prohibition – the jurisprudence on both sides of the Atlantic has progressed along very similar lines. This chapter charts the development of the law in these jurisdictions and considers whether such incertitude is an inevitable consequence of software’s duality as both text and machine.