Free Patents
Protecting Innovation & Competition in the IT
Industry
International
The World Trade Organization is conducting international
agreements on intellectual property.
The TRIPS
Agreement, which came into effect on 1 January 1995, is to date
the most comprehensive multilateral agreement on intellectual
property.
The TRIPS Agreement requires Member countries to make patents
available for any inventions, whether products or processes, in all
fields of technology without discrimination, subject to the normal
tests of novelty, inventiveness and industrial applicability.
Now, should software be patentable ? According to the this,
software may be excluded from patentability if they do not have
industrial applications per se. However, a footnote
states that "industrial application" may be deemed by a Member as a
synonymous to "useful".
Our interpretation of the TRIPS agreement is that states who want
to adopt software patentability may do so while states who want to
reject it may keep on rejecting it.
License-based patent protection
It is possible to use license-based IP (such as copyright) to get
some kind of international patent-related protection that goes
beyond national laws. For example, Netscape and IBM open source
licenses include termination clauses related to patent infringement.
For more information, you may read this.
In 1999, Apple introduced a new kind of
open source license which forces patent exchange as soon as
someone introduces a piece of source code protected by some
patent.
You hereby grant to Apple and all third parties a
non-exclusive, royalty-free license, under Your Applicable Patents
and other intellectual property rights owned or controlled by
You,
The Apple license goes even beyond : anyone starting a patent
infringement action will see his (or her) copyright license
terminate.
This License and the rights granted hereunder will terminate
automatically without notice from Apple if You, at any time during
the term of this License, commence an action for patent
infringement against Apple.
Because the extent of copyright licenses is automatically
international, this kind of license really acts as an international
protection against patent suits from anyone using your source
code.
Software patents are illegal in
Europe. However, some European countries do not fully enforce the
European Law. The European Patents Office is currently holding
software patents filings which come mostly (75%) from US companies.
The European Union is considering
introducing software patents in the European Law.
USA
Software patents are legal in the
United-States. More than 20 000 software patents are filed every
year in the US.
Other sources of information on US patent law
Japan
Software patents are legal in Japan.
More than 35 000 software patents are filed every year in Japan (8%
of the total amount of filed patents in Japan).
Sites & links
Links adviced by the IPR-Helpdesk of the
Europpean Union
Please help us to improve this web site by sending comments and
suggestions.
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