THE corruption at the EPO may mean that examiners who reject software patents in Europe can nowadays lose their job. But are there excuses for US examiners, who have clear rules by which to reject software patents in the US? There have, over the years, been formal complaints about these rules not being followed (we covered some examples).
As evidenced recently in the United States, it may be difficult to tell what categories of inventions are eligible for patent protection in foreign jurisdictions. To further complicate issues, standards of eligible subject matter can differ from country to country. What follows is a survey of patent eligible subject matter in various jurisdictions.
A sampling of subject matter eligibility outside of the US is provided below. Certain categories of subject matter are excluded as patent ineligible in all countries discussed, such as scientific discoveries, purely intellectual activities, laws of nature, and mathematical equations; other categories are excluded as culture-specific, such as inventions “against public morality” or “against Sharia law”. Microorganisms can be claimed in all of the jurisdictions included here, and are therefore excluded, as are certain categories of subject matter mentioned in only one foreign jurisdiction, such as the explicit exclusion of methods of horticulture and agriculture in India and personal skills in Japan.
Lockpath, a leading provider of integrated risk management solutions, today announced the receipt of two newly issued patents related to its Keylight Platform. The patents were granted for the Keylight Formula Engine, which allows customers to easily create risk calculations, and the Dynamic Content Framework, Keylight's scalable and flexible content engine.