Software patents in India: a cause for celebration?
16-10-2015
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The revised guidelines on computer-related inventions by the Indian Patent Office imply a reversed position on whether software inventions should be patentable. Abhishek Pandurangi of Khurana & Khurana reports.
After the Indian Patent Office (IPO) published the first set of guidelines for examining patents for computer-related inventions in August, in February the office introduced an amended set of rules.
While the previous guidelines were kept in abeyance in response to strong protests by critics, a revision was expected, but surprisingly the IPO has replaced an excessively liberal set of guidelines indicating that any software is patentable with a contrary one which almost indicates that no software patents are allowed.
Among other deviations, while the previous guidelines gave several examples of software and quasi-business method claims that were acceptable—some of them inconceivably broad—the present guidelines do not offer a single patentable example. Below is an example in the previous guidelines which led to raised eyebrows across the industry:
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