Bonum Certa Men Certa

In the Interests of the Public, India Bans Software Patents and the USPTO Should Follow Suit

Unlikely to happen as long as the patent establishment (USPTO) generates revenue from software patents, at the expense of many other people

USPTO register



Summary: A little more coverage about India's decision to maintain the embargo on software patents and what this can teach the US public about the US patent office

Software patents in India are a subject we've tracked for nearly a decade. Time after time we saw foreign companies such as IBM and Microsoft trying to shame India into making software patents legal.



"Last month," says this new article. "the Indian Patents Office released the revised Guidelines for Computer Related Invention (CRI Guidelines), which has finally aligned the Patents Office fully with the Indian Patents Act. This is the third time that software patents have been beaten back in India: the first with the Amendments to the Patents Act in 2005, the next, smuggling it in through the Patents Manual issued by the Patents Office, and this time, through the original CRI Guideline issued in August last year. Each time, these attempts have been beaten back."

"Time after time we saw foreign companies such as IBM and Microsoft trying to shame India into making software patents legal."On the same day we found an article by Glyn Moody, titled "After Some Dangerous Wavering, Indian Patent Office Gives Definitive 'No' To Software Patents". Dr. Moody notes: "As Techdirt has reported over the years, views on whether software should be patentable, and if so, to what extent, have ebbed and flowed. In the US, the Supreme Court's decision in Alice v. CLS Bank seems to have established that most software isn't patentable. In the EU, the fate of software patents is less clear. According to the European Patent Convention, patents are not available for computer programs "as such" -- but that metaphysical "as such" rider has allowed thousands of software patents to be issued anyway. Muddying the waters further is the Unified Patent Court, which may or may not come into existence soon, with almost unchecked powers to reshape the patent landscape in Europe."

An Indian innovator, Vivek Wadhwa, whom we mentioned here before because of his views on software patents [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], wrote the following piece for the Washington Post (it's about the USPTO), later to be reposted in Indian media (yesterday) and say:

Lemley and Feldman found that that patent litigation and licensing demands for existing patents only happen after the defendant has developed and implemented the technology, particularly when patent trolls are involved. And they cite several studies which show that patent trolls now account for the majority of patent lawsuits that are filed.

This means that other than through university technology transfer, hardly any innovation is being created by technology patents. Therefore, it may be best to abolish them, particularly software patents - which have long been clogging up the patent office.

Universities are very defensive about patents; they argue that they need these to protect their ideas and inventions. This may be true, but it leads to yet another question: should universities be profiting from license revenue obtained from research that was publicly funded? Regardless of the answer, for the larger cause of innovation, it is clear that patents are not fulfilling the purpose for which they were intended. The often-cited defense of patents, that patent rights encourage inventions that would not otherwise occur, is no longer grounded in reality.


The key part from Wadhwa says "it may be best to abolish them, particularly software patents - which have long been clogging up the patent office." Amen to that. The USPTO has much to learn from India, not the other way around. But the USPTO has its own selfish interests. As this new article from WIPR has just put it: "USPTO: trademark and patent fees to hit $3.2bn"

Well, it costing the economy so much more, maybe $100bn in taxes and litigation fees. Who benefits from this? Surely not the population of the US.

Recent Techrights' Posts

European Parliament and Council Directive on Privacy is Vanishing
"edited / censored some time more recently"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 28, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 28, 2025
Slopwatch: The March of Slopfarms, From UbuntuPIT to Linux Journal and to Various Fake Sites Still Promoted by Google News
It's so worrying to see what the Web has become
Links 29/10/2025: CISA, Ukraine, and Amazon Problems
Links for the day
[Teaser] The EPO's Spokesperson, a Cocaine User, Fancies Young Women
How's that for "optics" in the EU and Europe's second-largest institution?
How Will António Campinos Respond to the EPO's 'Cocainegate'?
That's the same thing we saw and still see when the press deals with enablers and partners of Jeffrey Epstein
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part IV: There Cannot be Free Software Without Free Press and Free Information
One day, one can hope, more people will recognise that for Software Freedom we need free press and free thinkers
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part III: Principled Stance Is Never Cheap
Protecting the truth and insisting that the general public is made aware of things that really happened isn't cheap
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part II: Because Scarcity of Accurate Information Breeds Collective Ignorance
we too will strive to share information that's aggressively suppressed
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: More New Arrivals at Geminispace, xkcd on "Document Forgery"
Links for the day
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part I: Defence of the Truth
This year we make a very strong, firm statement for truth, even if that means explaining our work to the top media judge in the country
Links 28/10/2025: Meta and Fentanylware (CheeTok) Age-Restricted Down Under, "Britain Needs China’s Money"
Links for the day
Links 28/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon and Charter to Cut 1,200 Jobs
Links for the day
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part II: The Person Who Planted Paid-for Fake News for the European Patent Office (EPO) is a Cocaine User, Friend of António Campinos, Now on Record as Having Been Arrested
Background: High-level manager at the European Patent Office caught in public with cocaine, arrested
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 27, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 27, 2025
Google News Drowning in Slop (and Slopfarms That Hijack About Half the Results)
Google News seems to be drowning in this stuff
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: "How to Maximize Your Positive Impact" and ASCII Art and Artist Attribution
Links for the day
PETA and Activism
Being staff or volunteer in PETA isn't easy
Big Blue, Huge Debt
debt will soar again
Links 27/10/2025: Mass Surveillance Sold as "AI", People Reluctant to Lose Physical Media
Links for the day
Parties and Milestones Again
we've begun putting up about 40 balloons
Techrights' 19th Anniversary: Bronze
Time to go back to preparing for this anniversary
Our Latest European Patent Office (EPO) Series Will Last Several Weeks, Will Ask the EPO Management and the European Union (EU) Very Difficult Questions
If nobody loses a job (or jobs) over this, then the EU basically became no better than Colombia or Nicaragua
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, Brian Fagioli, and Google News
We focus on stories that are fake or LLM slop that disguises itself as "news" about Linux
Links 27/10/2025: Wikipedia Vandalism, Bruce Perens Opens up on Childhood
Links for the day
This Site Could Not be Done by LLMs Even If It Wanted to (Because It's Not a Parrot of What Other Sites Say)
LLMs have no knowledge or deep understanding
Microsoft is Disloyal Towards Its Most Loyal Employees
Against its most faithful enablers
19 Years, No Censorship
No factual information is ever going to be removed, more so if it is in the public interest
We Are Not a Conventional Site, That's Why They Hate (or Love) Us
Throughout the week this week we'll be focusing on the EPO
Following the Line of Cocaine All the Way to the Top
Even a million denials and spin-doctoring won't distract from the core issue
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part I: António Campinos Brought Corruption and Nepotism to the EPO, Then Came the Cocaine
High-level manager at the European Patent Office (EPO) caught in public with cocaine, the Office has some answering to do
Purchasing/Possessing Computers Isn't the Same as Controlling Computers
Let's strive to put computers back under the control of their users, no matter who purchased these (usually the users)
Gemini Links 27/10/2025: Alhena 5.4.3 and Fixing Bash
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 26, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 26, 2025
Thankfully We've Made Copies of More Interesting Data From statCounter
If statCounter (the Web site or the 'webapp') vanished overnight, we'd still have something left of it
More Silent Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
when the media counts such layoffs or presents tallies the numbers are very incomplete