Document Actions
U.K. judge frowns on software patents
A U.K. judge has questioned whether software patents should be granted, and has criticized the U.S. for allowing "anything under the sun" to be patented.
Sir Robin Jacob, a judge at the U.K.'s Court of Appeal who specializes in intellectual-property law, spoke about the potential problems surrounding software patents at a seminar for the Society for Computers and Law on Thursday evening in London.
"Do we need patents for computer programs? Where is the evidence for it?" Jacob asked.
The need for software patents has been questioned by campaigners such as the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure, but few studies have investigated this issue. The European Commission has funded a study on the legal, technical and economic effects of software patents on innovation, but the study is not due to be finished until 2007.
Read full text of articleSource: New.com
