This document provides an overview of patent law fundamentals, including: 1) Patents protect technical inventions by granting an exclusive right to prevent others from making, using, selling or importing the patented invention. The scope of a patent is determined by its claims. 2) For an invention to be patentable it must be novel, involve an inventive step, and have industrial application. Patents provide time-limited exclusive rights protection. 3) There are many rules and applications for patents, leading to a large backlog and little examination time per application. Patent boundaries can be fuzzy compared to copyright.

1. Digital Sustainability
in the Knowledge Society
Fundamentals of Patent Law
Dr. Marcus M. Dapp
Board OKF Germany / IT Strategist, City Government Munich
17.10.2011

2. Patents

3. Basic concept of patents
• Protect “technical inventions”
• ideas/concepts, not specific forms
• Exclusive right to prevent others from
• making, using, selling, importing
Form
• Application fee Expression
• Describe invention (disclosure) Idea
Concept
• List of claims determine scope
• Checked by patent examiner

4. Patent claims determine scope of patent

5. Preconditions for Patentability
• Patentable subject matter
• Eligible for patent protection
• 3­step test
• Novel (»prior art«, »Stand der Technik«)
• Non­obvious (US) / inventive step (EU)
• Useful (US) / industrial application (EU)
(WP: Patentability)

6. Patent scope
• Time
• Duration of exclusive rights protection
• “Space”
• Breadth (horizontal)?
• Depth (follow­up innovations)?
Show Black Duck patent ...

7. Patents and cumulative innovation
• Cumulatie innovations
• Innovations resulting from previous
innovations, e.g., IT and biotech
• Dependencies between innovations
• Use and reproduce previous innovations
• Optimal strategy?
• »deep« patents cover
following innovations

8. Patent examination
• A lot of rules
• A lot of applications
• Leading to
• Big backlog
• Little examination time (2h/appl.)

9. Rules, rules, rules
• 30 MB PDF
• 23 MB HTML
• (text only!)

10. Applications,
applications,
applications
• 1 M
• USPTO
• EPO

11. Same, same, but different …
Comparing copyright and patents

12. Copyright & Patents – Commonalities =
• Exclusive (monopoly) rights
• (Main) rationale: Monetary incentive
• State­granted
• Time­limited

13. Copyright & Patents – Differences I
•
• Protects expression
Protects expression •
• Protects idea
Protects idea
•
• Original works
Original works •
• “3­step” inventions
“3­step” inventions
•
• Automatic
Automatic •
• Submit application
Submit application
•
• Gratis
Gratis •
• Application fee
Application fee
•
• Boundaries clear
Boundaries clear •
• Boundaries fuzzy
Boundaries fuzzy
•
• Exceptions
Exceptions •
• »Claims«
»Claims«
•
• Disclosure(!)
Disclosure(!)

14. Copyright & Patents – Differences II
•
• Difficult to infringe
Difficult to infringe •
• Easy to infringe
Easy to infringe
•
• indep. creation
indep. creation •
• indep. invention
indep. invention
•
• »piracy« easy to
»piracy« easy to •
• high monitoring
high monitoring
detect
detect costs
costs
•
• Little limitation for
Little limitation for •
• Considerable limits
Considerable limits
other creators
other creators to others
to others
•
• small piece of
small piece of •
• Strategic patenting
Strategic patenting
creative space
creative space Block competition
•
• Block competition
•
• patent races
patent races
In general, patents show higher transaction costs than copyright.

15. Term “intellectual property”
• Is notion of “property” adequate?
• Different types function differently
• copyright ≠ patents ≠ trade marks
• Make clear what you are talking
about!

16. How should software be protected?
• Which system makes more sense to
protect software? Why?
• Pro /Con for copyright?
• Pro / Con for patents?
• Pro / Con for other solution(s)?
• Pro / Con for no protection?
• 5’ interaction with neighbours
• Share in plenary
3-5-1 interaction

17. Next session: How software is actually protected ...