patent is one of the types of intellectual property rights that are available. It grants the protection of the patented article in the inventor for a certain period. This monopoly of the manufacture of the invention is that the patent holder. The purpose of this system is the promotion by the promotion of inventions, their protection and use. As part of the system, patents, property rights for the invention for which patents have been issued.
The largest part of the law in relation to software patents from the United States, as the cradle of software patents. It began with the landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Diamond v. Diehr ordered the patent office to grant patent for an invention, even when a computer software was used. In a later decision in Re Alapat No. 92-1381 (Fed. Cir. July 29.1994) to clarify the position by the patenting of inventions, which can be implemented either in hardware or software, if the patent application is the invention as something more than a simple mathematical formula. The first software patent was probably never issued a patent for a computer with a slow and fast access storage and the programming to solve a linear programming problem by an iterative algorithm ...." For the year 1962 by the British Petroleum Company. The patent refers to the solution of simultaneous linear equations.
Recently a dispute has raged in India, whether the software should be granted patent protection or not. A software patent is normally defined as a patent protects some programming technique. Software programs are copyrighted. This was expressly stated in Section 2 (FFC) of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957.
Due to the Patents (Amendment) Ordinance, 2004 section 3 (k) was introduced. This section explains
"(C) a computer program per se other than its technical application in industry or a combination with the hardware."
At the mere reading of the above section we come to the obvious conclusion that computer programs were given patent protection. But on close inspection of the section it is clear that computer programs as such are not protected. This could only be used when a computer program was used in conjunction with some hardware as well. But nevertheless there is a controversy and came to an end only if the section in question was approved by the Patent Amendment Act, 2005.
Now there are two sides to this problem. On the one hand, the patent protection on any type of calculation seriously detrimental and an obstacle to creativity, productivity and the freedom of software developers writing code. The decisive advantage in dealing with computer programs is that logic can again without rewriting or physically change the hardware. So it is easy to re-write, copy, improve and modify computer programs. A good example of such use is the operating system Linux. There are numerous types of Linux like Red Hat Linux, Linux Sussex to name a few. These were developed by the additions and subtractions of the codes on the original program.
Software is complicated. It is a great computer program and can not be understood by a person. Simply by way of its complexity is dependent on a variety of software technologies. An important computer code can be anywhere from 100,000 to 10 million lines of code. Software technology is evolving quickly. It is therefore difficult or impossible to manufacture new products in the software industry, without infringing numerous patents. A good example is when the patenting of data exchange standards forced another programming group introducing an alternate format. PNG format was introduced to the GIF patent issues, and Ogg Vorbis format has been introduced to the MP3 patent problems. After obtaining patent protection for an invention, including the software is relatively expensive.
On the other hand, there are high costs for research and development of software, is one of the reasons for the increasing number of patent applications for software. Copyright protects only the expression of an idea, while patent law protects the underlying idea of how good the idea is not so fundamental that it is not in the categories of patentable subject matter. In addition, software products marketed mass without signed licensing agreement, the strong protection of the patent law is becoming increasingly important. Finally, an issued patent for software it is possible that all the others from the use of a particular algorithm, without authorization, or it may be that different from creating software programs that will function in a certain way.
Finally, patents and copyrights shape complementary funding for the protection of software innovations. Patents for the underlying methodologies used in a specific software on the function that the software intended for, regardless of the language or code, the software is in. Copyrights protect against direct copying of some or all of a certain version of a particular software, but does not prevent other authors to write their own incarnations of the underlying methods. India has made leaps and bounds in the field of intellectual property rights. But the time is still needed so that the country at a time when the patenting of software is acceptable.
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