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A software patent is a patent on a piece of software, such as a computer program, library, user interface, or algorithm.The validity of these patents can be difficult to evaluate, as software is often at once a product of engineering, something typically eligible for patents, and an abstract concept, which is typically not.
A patent thicket is a dense web of patents that companies must decipher to develop new technology. There are various types of patent thickets such as when a single innovation is protected by multiple patent holders or when a product is covered by numerous patents.
Neither software nor computer programs are explicitly mentioned in statutory United States patent law.Patent law has changed to address new technologies, and decisions of the United States Supreme Court and United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) beginning in the latter part of the 20th century have sought to clarify the boundary between patent-eligible and patent ...
In October 2007, IP Innovation LLC, a company specialized in patent-protection, filed a suit for patent infringement against Red Hat and Novell. [44] [45] [46] However, IP Innovation LLC is a subsidiary of a company classified by some as a patent troll, [47] and commentators suspect a strong connection between this company and Microsoft.
The "patentability" of inventions (defining the types things that qualify for patent protection) is defined under Sections 100–105. Most notably, section 101 [9] sets out "subject matter" that can be patented; section 102 [10] defines "novelty" and "statutory bars" to patent protection; section 103 [11] requires that an invention to be "non ...
Patents were systematically granted in Venice as of 1474, where they issued a decree by which new and inventive devices had to be communicated to the Republic in order to obtain legal protection against potential infringers. The period of protection was 10 years. [12] As Venetians emigrated, they sought similar patent protection in their new homes.
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Contemporary arguments have focused on ways that patents can slow innovation by: blocking researchers' and companies' access to basic, enabling technology, and particularly following the explosion of patent filings in the 1990s, through the creation of "patent thickets"; wasting productive time and resources fending off enforcement of low-quality patents that should not have existed ...