Software Patents

Software Patent in India

India for long time didn’t consider computers for patentability. But due to international pressure and domestic development lead to the consideration for Software Patent. Patent gives monopoly for the new invention. Software patent in India comes under old patent Act, which was done in 1970. That was later amended in 1999. It was further amended in 2002.

In India, in patents involving computer program, it is always essential to analyze them, on the basis of what has been innovation in that field, what have been the prior work in that field and taking these factors it is decided whether the subject has advancement in that area and has intellectual content in it. According to the law computer programs can be done in many ways. If the way doesn’t requires any different hardware or organization. Then such computer programs are excluded from software patentability.

“If the implementation of a new program requires internal modification to a computer of such a nature that it may reasonably be regarded as a new computer then clearly a claim to this computer is not excluded, even though at first sight the invention may seem to relate merely to a program and the purpose of modifying the computer is subsidiary to this. The modification must however be inventive itself; if a computer is modified in a manner which is the obvious way of implementing the program, then the inventive contribution will still reside solely in the program itself.”


Ethical values involved in Software laws

1) Laws for Software patents and copyright in India contains the same basic functionalities as followed in US. But it should always be seen whether the rules being followed in that part of world are in synchronous with others and do they observe the basic ethical values.

2) For instance software patent law should give privelege to the inventor of the product but should not hamper development in that field. Thus it should have justified approach in it.

3) The laws in it should not stop people around the globe from getting into the next phase of development just because of the sake of laws. As it would go against the common good of people.

4) Overlaping of software patents has also been the cause of concern lately in software. Overlapping happens unintentionally or it is done purposely to get away with the patents and copyrights of other companies in order to progress. Thus certain compassion approach should be followed so that it doesn't affects others.

Global Impact

As India has becomes center of outsourcing it becomes very important for India to follow the software patents and copyrights. Because it will always affect the customers in USA and Europe whom they will be serving. The good thing is that India just started taking steps towards software patents and copyrights so they can really get into the right ethical issues. India has been the part of the following organization in order to support the copyright laws all over the globe.

1) Universal Copyright Convention

India is the member of UCC Universal Copyright Convention. India became member in 1952 and UCC are administrated by UNESCO. 52 countries are the part of this group. This group protects the software authors in the countries in the group.

Members of UCC include

Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium,Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and United States.

2) Berne Convention

This convention was established in 1886 in Berne, Switzerland in order to protect international copyright. It is administrated by World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). 105 countries are part of this group. These group give certain moral rights to the software makers. All the countries in this organization try to follow minimum protective requirements. Countries in the group are

Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxwmbourg, Malayasia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Prtugal, Romania, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela and Yugoslavia

Following are some of my point of view in terms of software laws being followed in India and all over world.

• Software patents will kill innovations. People will have patents by just having ideas on particular subject and thus preventing others from working on it. 
• It may lead to earning money by just having patent rights on the subject and doing nothing related to it but enjoying royalty in it. 
• The decisions which India makes regarding software issues will affect globally as quite a lot development in the future will done over here as it has become outsourcing center. 
• Software patents should be used to protect the software authors and not for having monopoly. This affects the ethical value. 
• Software patents should not affect development in that field. It should allow others to work in that field. So that progress is achieved. 

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Posted in: CONCEPTS,PATENTS