The Technology Criterion in Patent Law: A Controversial But Indispensable Requirement - Softcover

Bakels, Reinier B.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9058508625 ISBN 13: 9789058508621

Publisher: W.L.P. (Wolf Legal Publishers), 2012

Synopsis

Patenting allegedly non-technical subject-matter, like software and business methods, is controversial, both from a political and a legal perspective. Political opinions about patents in these fields vary from "indispensable" to "disastrous." Lawyers complain about opaque rules that would violate statutes. US law allows patents on non-technical subject-matter, but it excludes "abstract ideas," an exclusion that leads to remarkably similar controversies, again both at the political and the legal level. Coincidentally, in 2010, both the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office and the US Supreme Court addressed these problems, but unfortunately both failed to provide the clarification one had hoped for. This book gives a unique explanation why patents logically should only be granted for technology, and how the technology concept should be interpreted in order to solve today's controversies, both at the legal and the policy level.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Patenting allegedly non-technical subject-matter like software and business methods is controversial both from a political and a legal perspective. Political opinions about patents in these fields vary from "indispensable" to "disastrous". Lawyers complain about opaque rules that would violate statutes.

US law allows patents on non-technical subject-matter, but it excludes "abstract ideas", an exclusion that leads to remarkably similar controversies, again both at the political and the legal level.

Coincidentally, in 2010 both the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office and the U.S. Supreme Court addressed these problems, but unfortunately both failed to provide the clarification one had hoped for.

For all these reasons, the technology criterion in patent law is an almost ideal topic for a PhD research project, an exciting intellectual challenge at the same time fulfilling a topical social need.

Edition details

• Publisher: W.L.P. (Wolf Legal Publishers)
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9058508625
• ISBN 13: 9789058508621
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 275