The law and policy of patent eligibility of computer software—focusing on U.S. law
| Autor: | Liu, Wencan, 劉文燦 |
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| Druh dokumentu: | 學位論文 ; thesis |
| Popis: | 105 In the early stage of software industry in 1970s to 1980s, it was controversial as to whether software was a patent eligible subject matter. The Supreme Court of United States made a series of eligibility-related cases, i.e. Gottschalk v. Benson (1972), Parker v. Flook (1978) and Diamond v. Diehr (1981) which are still influencing the issue of eligibility at present. After decades of peace and when the issue is nearly forgotten, eligibility of software has become disputed again recently. The Supreme Court started another series of eligibility cases. Among them, Alice Corp. Pty. v. CLS Bank International (2014), a highly influential one, set forth a systemic rule for eligibility testing. After Alice, software-related patents are frequently invalidated due to eligibility by lower courts, though software in theory is patentable. In this way, the Supreme Court has greatly weakened software patent rights. This thesis attempts to explore the reasons behind the policy. Starting from phenomena aspect, it introduces various issues that software patents encounter. Then the features of software will be discussed, the compatibility between software innovations and the patent system will be analyzed, and a conclusion will be reached that the current patent system is unfit for software innovations. On this account, the thesis argues that the patent system is less than effective for software innovations as far as the theory that patents encourage innovations is concerned. As a result, the policy of weakening software patents is supported. In the end, the thesis retraces some important legal cases delivered by the Supreme Court of United States and the Court of Appeals for Federal Circuit, and looks into how they check eligibility of patents. Proposing how the eligibility test the courts are using should be construed, the thesis offers several suggestions as to how the test should be applied. |
| Databáze: | Networked Digital Library of Theses & Dissertations |
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