How to determine whether software is patentable - Part 2

This is part 2 in a series of articles on how to determine whether your software is patentable. If you are an inventor, an executive at a tech company, or a patent lawyer outside the U.S., this will help you to at least make a first pass determination of whether your software is worth considering for patent protection. In each podcast in this series, we cover one criterion that you can use to evaluable whether your software is likely to be patentable.

In the podcast episode, you will learn:

• How the U.S. Patent Office is very strict about rejecting patent applications that could, even in theory, be performed by a human instead of a computer.
• The kind of things you must describe about your software in the application to the Patent Office
• The kinds of data to provide
• Why it’s important to hire a patent attorney specialising in software patents

If you are a patent attorney outside the U.S. with a client who has developed new software, then this is a good time to consult with a U.S. patent attorney to further evaluate the software for patenting.  If you find that your client's software doesn't satisfy any of the criteria on the checklist described in this series of articles, then it means that your software is probably not patentable in the U.S. There may, however, be features of the software that you have overlooked, in which case you may need to dig further or even further develop the software and then reevaluate it for patenting.

Stay tuned for our next article about how to determine whether software is patentable, in which we’ll describe another factor to consider when evaluating your software for patenting.