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No patent if invention lies only in computer program, says Indian Patent Office
- quanticle 11y agoDoes this mean that software patents are not valid in India? If so, what will this mean for trade relations between India and the US?
- analog31 11y agoUS patents are generally not valid in India. As I understand it, you have to patent something in every country where you want protection. In practice, you choose how many countries you need, in order to protect a reasonable market. Sometimes you can guess wrong about this, of course.
- tomkinstinch 11y ago[IANAL] The PCT makes it possible to shotgun patent applications globally though, right? India is a contracting state. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_Cooperation_Treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_Cooperation_Treaty
- analog31 11y agoIt does, but as I understand it, you still choose where you want to apply for a patent (and consequently, how many fees you have to pay). I have a number of patents. For my earliest ones, the lawyer suggested filing in the US, and in any country where a competitor was located. Later we started filing in US, EU, and in some cases Japan. Today, China is on the list, but not India.
- nileshtrivedi 11y agoEU doesn't have software patents by law either. They're being granted in violation of law.
- runholm 11y agoSame as for EU countries where software patents are not valid. You can make a product that violates US software patents, but not sell that product in the US market. Depending on your business model that may be acceptable or not.
- danfinlay 11y agoHasn't this judge seen the Matrix?
- nashashmi 11y agoDoes this make UI innovations unpatentable? Can GUI be considered a hardware?
- cududa 11y agoHow would a graphical representation on a screen be considered hardware?
- acchow 11y agoWhat if you write the program into silicon?
- hodwik 11y agoThat implementation of the program in silicon would be patented, but if someone wrote it again as code they'd be good to go.
- idibidiart 11y agoHow about a hardware invention/device made entirely of FPGAs?
- hodwik 11y agoPatents are generally structured like "Method for solving XYZ problem". You could patent your FPGA invention, sure, but that wouldn't stop someone from re-implementing it in code.
- josaka 11y agoI'd be curious to hear a principled explanation for why a patent on a circuit implementing algorithm should be patentable while the same functionality is not worth protecting when encoded in memory as software.
- gilgoomesh 11y agoI've always though trying to discriminate against "software" patents was particularly stupid. First: it simply encourages patents where the entire computer is included in a description of the software, turning it into a product/apparatus patent. Second: the problem most people have with software patents is not the fact that software is being protected. The problem is that software patents are rife with "inventions" that are merely a low-effort merging of existing ideas – usually ideas that are well established and the context is changed slightly. This second point applies to any industry, not just software. Biotech industries are continually trying to patent drugs and genes using the same pattern. Fix the stupid determination of novelty, rather than discriminating against certain kinds of invention.
- studentrob 11y agoNovelty in the US is largely decided by the courts after patents are granted, and it's very expensive. India is saying software patents are not novel enough to protect, and directing its patent examiners not to grant them. Our examiners grant patents left and right with little consideration for if they're novel.
- gilgoomesh 11y agoIf the patent office can't usefully determine novelty (needing to defer to the courts) then why have a patent office at all? The same problems affecting software continually affect every other industry. Software is more visible than other R&D but if software needs to be excised from patents then everything probably should.
- newjersey 11y ago> If the patent office can't usefully determine novelty (needing to defer to the courts) then why have a patent office at all? What would be the effect of closing shop and saying no new patents in the United States? I think this would be the best outcome. I mean do patent applications actually help people recreate the invention after the patent expires? If not, why should patents exist at all?
- studentrob 11y agoFinally someone with some common sense. Software is already protected by copyright.
- quadrangle 11y agoyou mean restricted. Copyright law is specifically about keeping copyrights reserved. The thing it protects is monopolies, not software.
- kazinator 11y agoNot in the same way that it is protected by patents! Copyright protects the expression, not the idea. If the idea isn't patented, then someone else can implement it from scratch using their own copyrighted code. Hardware blueprints are also copyrighted; and that also doesn't protect the inherent idea. Nete that this new rejection in the Indian patent system is not only of software patents but in general "mathematical methods". If you come up with some amazing new crypto after 25 years of painstaking research, India says that you cannot patent the idea, and so anyone who learns about it can write implementations of it in code and distribute them in India without having to license anything from you. Of course, most software patents are garbage, but that's because they are for trivial things which anyone could come up with easily and/or have tons of prior art that the lazy slobs at the USPTO didn't bother hunting down, or are so broad that they apply to anything. (E.g. "some processing method for converting one file to another" or whatever). It's not so clear cut that that, say, RSA should not have been patented.
- studentrob 11y agoYou're right. If it were up to me I'd reduce the term of software patents to 3-5 years.
- tracker1 11y agoAgreed.. I would add that most software patents should not be granted, not that no software patents should... but method/process and software patents should definitely be a much shorter term.
- musesum 11y agoUhm, this sounds a lot like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_v._Diehr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_v._Diehr Which is essential the beginning of patents, in the US. Basically, the software has to run on a hardware device. How is it different? (IANAL)
- nileshtrivedi 11y agoThe Indian patent office has given many examples in their guidelines to clarify what is patentable and what isn't. Looks like it'll be good for a while (unless the parliament changes the law).
- Joky 11y agoHow is it different from Europe? According to Wikipedia [0]: "Under the EPC, and in particular its Article 52, "programs for computers" are not regarded as inventions for the purpose of granting European patents" [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_the_European_Patent_Convention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_the_Eur...
- nileshtrivedi 11y agoNot very different. India (like EU) had been granting software patents in violation of the law, so people complained and the new guidelines clarify this matter.
- 99_00 11y agoDoes this mean that in India, if a big company likes a startup they can just clone their product? It's has to be cheaper than acquiring.
- MichaelApproved 11y agoIn many cases, cloning is the easy part. Building the community of customers is where the real challenge is. Companies are often acquired for their customer base, not their IT. Buy out price calculation is done on a cost per user.
- 99_00 11y agoBut what about the products who's value isn't in their user base?
- MichaelApproved 11y agoWhat's an example of that?
- 99_00 11y agoA compression algorithm.
- quadrangle 11y agoYou mean like how it works in the U.S. already? Yeah. But what does that have to do with this news about software patents? ;)
- nileshtrivedi 11y agoEU doesn't have software patents either. Even US law is now turning around (see Alice case).
- tn13 11y agoHonestly I would not give much important to Indian Patent Office. It can be appealed in High Court and Supreme Court which may take our lifetimes to arrive at any conclusion
- nileshtrivedi 11y agoThe patent office has just re-affirmed the law, not changed the law (because it cannot). Software patents have come up time and again and every time, the parliament has rejected them.
- tn13 11y agoDoesn't matter. Courts can arbitrarily change what is Patent Office's interpretation. Unless it has passed through SC I wont even bother.
- simula67 11y agoSo does this means we can create ISOs of Ubuntu etc with all the media codecs pre-installed and distribute them freely in India ?
- nileshtrivedi 11y agoI would think so. As long as you don't distribute in countries which do have software patents.
- gayprogrammer 11y agoCopyright is different from patents.
- chrisbennet 11y ago"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" Software patents are currently a drag on innovation. The benefits of giving a company a monopoly in exchange for sharing their software "invention" isn't a good bargain - especially when their "invention" will be, and has been, independently invented over and over again 99.9% of the time. Patents may be OK for some things but they cause more harm than good in the software field.
- decafbad 11y agoTurkish Patent Institute also explicitly states no software patents. Search for programs: http://www.tpe.gov.tr/TurkPatentEnstitusu/resources/temp/FCF70E4B-ABEE-49E3-A769-5D1343953E85.pdf http://www.tpe.gov.tr/TurkPatentEnstitusu/resources/temp/FCF...
- datamanc3r 11y agoI'm really liking this trend. The US's version of this is Alice v CLS Bank case. Very similar rulings, and the effect is reverberating throughout the legal community. I think it's great that process patents in general are going bye-bye. Now we can make some real strides in the medical, business, and software fields without being deterred by trolls and monopolies.
- datamanc3r 11y agoThe US equivalent of this ruling would be the Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International. Very similar ruling by the US Supreme Court, urging the USPTO to stop endorsing process patents in general because of their claims to abstraction. This ruling is reverberating throughout the legal community. It's great, and we can make real strides in the medical, business, and software fields without being hindered by trolls and monopolies.
- GirlProgrammer 11y agoThat's not quite right either because a lot of things, including radios, and electronic circuits, can be represented with a computer program these days.
- yalogin 11y agoThis is awesome. India is doing the correct hung these days. First they show Zuckerberg the door and then this. Kudos to whoever is in charge of this change.
- rdsubhas 11y agoNot just that. Disallowing evergreen biotech patents, making generics to be free from price fixing, fighting against yoga/ayurvedha/siddha patents worldwide, right to food, right to education, right to information and so on. Seriously India gets a lot of flak, but we're leading the charge in many areas! Just take a look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Knowledge_Digital_Library https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Knowledge_Digital_...
- quetzthecoatl 11y agoAgree with the sentiment, except for RTE. How in the world is RTE anything but pure evil? For a country that is in dire need of new schools, how can any law that closes existing schools with flimsy reasons and zero due process (not that it matters when you have 200 years backlog in courts) be anything but pure evil? These are private schools started by individuals with no government funds. It has made impossible for hindus who form 85+% of the population to start and operate schools (irrespective of the social status/caste/financial status). It has essentially made an essential commodity that is education scarce (as you know it's not economically viable for 85% of the population to start one).
- chris_wot 11y agoRight, all Linux distribution move their patent encumbered software to a special Indian-based repo server. Or someone else does it with donations from Westeners to keep the servers running. I can dream. But should this work, then that's the end of the U.S. and European hegemony on abstract ideas like business processes, patents based on processes "that use a computer" and any mathematical concept - which puts paid to patents on most network protocols and compression algorithms. And what a great world that will be. The first grand step in killing all patent trolls.
- ronakdoshi 11y agoThis seems to be the result of The groups, which raised protest against the previous guideline issued in August, 2015.
- joe563323 11y agoI never thought this could happen in any country. Just awesome news.
- afsina 11y agoI also find this distinction stupid. Just abolish all patents and make your business plan accordingly (High quality products, Trade secrets, Saturating the market, Early entry advantage, etc.) I have yet to see a compelling argument against this.
- Qwertious 11y agoThe problem with trade secrets is that they're never made public, and can be lost if the person holding them dies. If they're granted a monopoly on the secret in exchange for publicly documenting the secret, then the rest of the world is better off once the patent period expires - the trade secret is now trade public knowledge. The problem is that if they make up a BS "trade secret", they can get benefits without actually having anything to contribute, which is the textbook definition of rent-seeking.
- z3t4 11y agoBecause a computer program is just a set of instructions, you could argue if we even need copyrights!? Personally I think software copyrights is a nice middle way. Software pattens is just silly, you want to have comments in your code? Pay Microsoft! You want to make object oriented code? Pay Oracle. Need networking? Pay Facebook.
- tehwalrus 11y agoSo, just like the EU definition then; where software patents are disallowed. Good.
- blazespin 11y agoRight. Go from like 20 years to 0 years. Does anyone ever think that maybe they should go to 5 years for software patents instead? Why go from one extreme to another?
- Kiro 11y agoI thought this was how it worked in most countries except the US.
- jpkeisala 11y agoExacty, it does. You cannot patent software as you cannot patent math except maybe in US.
- crimsonalucard 11y agoWhat is their definition of "Computer" ???
- tremon 11y agoEnter software patent enforcement through trade agreements in 3, 2, 1...