VIABILITY OF SOFTWARE PATENT: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

Innovation is the key to development in every industry and the speed of innovation in software
industry is astonishing. However, such innovation requires a legal framework which is equally
progressive, so as to assimilate and adopt to new innovations or developments, specifically
speaking the intellectual property law. One thing that has grabbed the attention of international
community is “software patent”. “Software patent” has not only acquired attention in
“academic literature” but in the courts, from the governments and the software industry itself.
There is higher ambivalence in practice of granting of “software patents” globally.

The question which devours the major portion of the debate on “software patent” is whether
software could be a patentable subject matter. Other questions being what should be the
qualifications in order to be patentable, whether patent is an encouragement or a blockage to
innovation and development of the industry as a whole, whether the existing patent law regime
needs reforms etc.

Through this paper the authors would deliberate upon, how courts in the United States and
Europe, over the time, have developed the jurisdiction of “software patent” including the
international framework correlated with “software patent” and India’s failed attempt to develop
the “software patent” regime form its existing nascent state. The authors would also highlight
how “software patents” are divergent from other kinds of patents and what others issues are
associated with “software patents”. This paper is an attempt to understand the global status quo
of law relating to “software patents” and global practice of granting the same.