Common Law Software Patent Applications – a Before-Filing Checklist

If you work with software patents, you have certainly already encountered problems when it comes to absolute patentability criteria.

I work with software inventions for more than 20 years and find it useful to have actual checklists for a specific jurisdiction into which one would like to extend a patent protection. The reason being that there has never been a clear border line between patentable and non-patentable subject matter in the field of computer implemented inventions. One example: while it has been relatively easy to obtain a patent for a computer implemented invention in the USA, this has completely changed over the past few years. The hurdle for patenting a computer implemented invention in the USA has been set much higher now than it was a few years back.

The following is a template write-up about patentability of computer implemented inventions in common law jurisdictions, mainly derived from our patent prosecution practice at the UK Patent Office over the past few years.

Continue reading here