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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 ...
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.
The software patent debate is the argument about the extent to which, as a matter of public policy, it should be possible to patent software and computer-implemented inventions. Policy debate on software patents has been active for years. [ 1 ]
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.
Leading open-source figures and companies [10] have complained that software patents are overly broad and the USPTO should reject most of them. Bill Gates has said "If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today".
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Patents are frequently used to protect hardware consoles from cloning. Though patents do not cover elements like the form and shape of a console, they can be used to protect the internal hardware and electronic components, as Magnavox had used at the onset of the arcade game and home console clones. [53]