23/09/2019

Top Tips For Protecting Software With A Patent

Many different types of inventions have important features that include or use software and an all too common misconception is that software is not patentable.  This is absolutely incorrect!   The European Patent Office (and many Patent Offices around the world) have been granting patents for computer implemented inventions having an important software element.

To give the best chance of successfully obtaining a patent for an invention having an important software part, the patent application should:

• 1.  Identify and describe what is already known in terms of its technical problems.
• 2.  Set out benefits achieved by the software in terms of how the invention provides a solution to those problems.
• 3.  Describe all physical/technical components or processing steps that are needed to achieve the solution.
• 4.  Describe as many practical applications and/or implementations for the invention.
• 5.  Describe conventional aspects (such as data processing) in as much technical detail as possible, and include flow charts, block diagrams and stylised schematics in the patent specification.

(Note that there is no requirement to include the source code – snippets of code which can clearly illustrate essential features of the invention are useful.

JP White European Patent Attorneys are experts at preparing patent applications in all software and information technology fields.  Contact us now at contact@jpwhite.ie for a free initial consultation.

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• Jonathan White