Internetrecht door Arnoud Engelfriet

Via de referer log vond ik Software and business method patents, een zeer uitgebreide pagina over “business method patents”, octrooien op werkwijzen voor het zakendoen. Een populair onderwerp ten tijde van de Internet-boom, zeker nadat het Europees Octrooibureau de indruk wekte ook octrooi voor deze niet-technische uitvindingen te verlenen. Maar daar zijn ze duidelijk van teruggekomen.

This page is about software and business method patents. Even for those who live from filing, examining and ruling them software and business method patents are a new and evolving domain. Forming an opinion about what is an invention, what can be patented and whether a program infringes a patent requires:

• A knowledge of law and of examiner guidelines and manuals. An understanding of past patent practices. The historical perspective is necessary to understand why some things are patentable and some other things requiring as much ingenuity are not.
• An understanding of current patent practices. The time of the independent inventors, spending their own money and working alone to develop their invention, has gone. Today inventors are usually salary men working in teams and without incentive and time to create outstanding inventions and patents.
• An understanding of the inventive work.

Arnoud