Substantive Law
Although it is an implicit requirement of Section 1(1) of the UK Patent Act (1977) that patents should only be granted for inventions, "invention" is not defined anywhere in the Act.
Instead, Section 1(2) Patents Act provides a non-exhaustive list of things that are not treated as inventions. Included in this list is "a program for a computer". However these things are only prevented from being treated as inventions "to the extent that a patent or application for a patent relates to that thing as such"
Article 52(2) of the European Patent Convention (EPC) includes a slightly different list of non-inventions, although "programs for computers" are present. Article 52(3) EPC then states that patentability for the identified subject matter or activities is excluded "only to the extent to which a European patent application or European patent relates to such subject-matter or activities as such".
The wording of the Patents Act is slightly different from Article 52 EPC, but the UK Courts have taken the view that since the purpose of Section 1 of the Patents Act was to transpose the requirements of Article 52 EPC into UK law, any differences between the EPC and the Patents Act should be ignored. The text of the EPC itself should therefore be regarded as definitive.
Other things that are not regarded as inventions include mathematical methods, and schemes, rules and methods for performing mental acts, playing games or doing business. These additional excluded categories often overlap with the exclusion of computer programs since they may be put into practice using a computer.
Read more about this topic: Software Patents Under United Kingdom Patent Law
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