TechMedia: The worm turns for software patents

Back in March this year, the High Court handed down a decision on the patentability of computer programs see here.  This is an issue which has vexed courts considerably in recent years.  The High Court's decision was immediately appealed to the Court of Appeal (CA), whose decision has been eagerly anticipated in the hope that it would offer some clarity on the issue.  The CA has now handed down its decision.

The CA reviewed previous decisions of the UK courts and the European Patent Office (EPO) and recognised that there was something of a divergence between the approaches taken on the issue as to when a patent can be obtained for a computer program.  The CA nevertheless felt that it was possible and desirable to reconcile the two approaches and has now sought to bring the UK approach more in line with that of the EPO by suggesting which of these previous decisions should be followed in the UK.

The CA ultimately adopted a fairly restrictive interpretation of the exclusion from patentability of computer programs under UK law.  What this means in practice is that the UK Intellectual Property Office is likely to grant more patents for computer programs which will be welcome news for those producing 'proprietary' software.  For those who are opposed to the idea that computer programs should be patentable (for example, some parts of the open source software community) the CA's decision is likely to receive a frosty welcome.

For advice and assistance on patent matters, please contact Toby Headdon by email at toby.headdon@blplaw.com.