Author(s)
Martin Campbell-Kelly and Patrick Valduriez
Source
Marquette Intellectual Property Review, Vol. 9, 2005
Summary
This paper examines the quality of software patents.
Policy Relevance
This paper offers evidence that key software patents are not of poor quality. Policymakers should be careful in making policy on the assumption that these patents are bad.
Main Points
- Most analyses of software patents expose a few ridiculously bad ones. This paper considers the quality of 50 most-cited “good” software patents.
- The survey considers an array of system and applications software patents, complicated and simple patents.
- This survey shows:
- Software patents are not generally too obvious.
- Software patents often do not disclose enough about the invention, but mandatory code disclosure is not a good solution.
- Software patents mark real innovations, not strategy.
- Most are not too broad, but some are.
- Software patents are often obsolete before patents expire in 20 years.
- Copyright and patents are needed to protect large, complex programs with both code and media content. But copyright protection is too long for simple code.
