Patent Protection for Software
The Role of Software in Innovation Today
The world is experiencing a rapid increase in the rate of innovation, and software is the top category in which this innovation is occurring. In 2020, for example, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued approximately three times more software patents than mechanical patents. Software patents, therefore, were issued at about 300% the rate of mechanical patents. This shows the importance of software to modern innovation today.
And innovation in the software space is tightly linked to value and wealth in today’s economy. In 2020, for example, nine out of ten of the largest valued companies (valued by market capitalization) were technology companies, of which 66% were software companies or companies with a large software component, including Apple, Tesla, Microsoft, Google and Samsung. This illustrates how software is being used to create value and wealth in the modern economy.
Securing Your Knowledge with Software Patents
As a programmer/developer and inventor, software patents are your tool for securing rights to your innovative know-how and creations. As a 25-year software developer himself, attorney Mark Terry understands the time and energy that goes into creating new software. Countless hours are spent designing, writing source code, compiling, testing, debugging and deploying software. If the final result is a novel and useful computer program, then you are entitled to ownership rights over that software.
Software Patents Are About the Process
Software patents, or business method patents, as they are otherwise known, focus on the process or the steps taken by a computing device. A software patent protects a series of steps or activities that are undertaken by one or more computers or servers while performing a task or accomplishing a goal. These steps or activities include reading data, processing data, executing mathematical operations, writing data, receiving/transmitting data, etc. When the combination of steps or activities taken by the computer is novel and useful, then it is a patentable software invention.
Your software is highly valuable to you and/or your company, and therefore it is important to seek advice from an intellectual property who has experience with software, and who knows the difference between an array and floating point format. Contact patent attorney Mark Terry (http://plusfirm.com/staff-member/mark-terry-esquire/ for a free consultation regarding your source code.