Software Patents Under United States Patent Law
Software or computer programs are not explicitly mentioned in United States patent law. Patent law changed to address new technologies and decisions of the United States Supreme Court and United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) in the latter part of the 20th century sought to clarify the boundary between patent-eligible and patent-ineligible subject matter for a number of new technologies including computers and software.
The status eligibility of software for patent protection per se has not been directly addressed by either the courts or the legislature. The expression "software patent" itself has not been clearly defined. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has permitted patents to be issued whose description included nothing but the steps of involved in the execution of software on a general purpose computer. Courts have both upheld such patents as valid and struck down such patents as invalid.
No overall ruling with respect to software patents eligibility per se has been issued by either the courts or the legislature.
Read more about Software Patents Under United States Patent Law: Law, History, Landmark Decisions
Famous quotes containing the words united, states, patent and/or law:
“Ethnic life in the United States has become a sort of contest like baseball in which the blacks are always the Chicago Cubs.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“I would rather be known as an advocate of equal suffrage than to speak every night on the best-paying platforms in the United States and ignore it.”
—Anna Howard Shaw (1847–1919)
“The cigar-box which the European calls a “lift” needs but to be compared with our elevators to be appreciated. The lift stops to reflect between floors. That is all right in a hearse, but not in elevators. The American elevator acts like the man’s patent purge—it works”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“The law of humanity ought to be composed of the past, the present, and the future, that we bear within us; whoever possesses but one of these terms, has but a fragment of the law of the moral world.”
—Edgar Quinet (1803–1875)