Ideas are a dime a dozen. Similar innovative approach floats around the mind of many people. The only way one can have possession of that idea is to get it patented. Registering of a patent gives you exclusive right, a strong market position as well as higher returns on investment. Apart from that, the enterprise filing the patent gets a positive image. Unfortunately, Indians lag in the patent filing. In 2017, over 6 lakh applications were submitted in the US and only 46,600 in India. Out of these, grants came to just over 12,000. The number is very disappointing, knowing the fact that we are a country of 1.37 billion people.

Reasons for low patent filing count in India

In 2016-17, India spent just 0.7% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on research and development of patents. While Japan, the US, and China spent 3.2%, 2.8%, and 2.1% respectively in the same year, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).  

Apart from funding, the other primary reason is a lack of awareness about filing patents. Foreign applicants have a significant impact on patent filing and grants in India. Such applicants have filed two-thirds of patent applications in 2018-19. They have received four-fifths of grants, according to the Office of Controller General of Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks. The major US chipmaker Qualcomm filed maximum patents and received the highest grants in India in 2018-19. It has ownership of around 1,599 applications, which is more than six times more than applications filed by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).  Indian firms consider patents as a cost centre. Instead, it must have a dimension of revenue centre.       

Another problem is the approach of Indian researchers towards the patent. They focus on publishing their work in journals instead of patenting them. One of the reasons behind it is the time taken to get a patent. In 2017, the granting of a patent in India took 64 months. According to WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), it takes 22 months in China and 24 months in the US to file the patent. This results in a delay in the issue of grants. It is highly probable that the technology might move on or become less demanding at the time when the grant is received.  

Indian patent law put a restriction on the term of the patent and its extension. Such conditions are flexible in the US and Europe. It is possible to file a patent in multiple countries based on its commercial potential in those markets. But filing patents in foreign countries is expensive. In India, one can file a patent for as little as Rs.20, 000, which has the validity of 20 years. The same patent will cost in lakhs when filing abroad. This is a tradeoff for Indian researchers to file the patent on foreign land.

We hope the count of patent filing increases in consecutive years, and all such issues are addressed by the respective authority of patent filing and grants. What are your views on the patent filing process? Do share with us in comments below.

Today, as we celebrate 50 years of the moon landing by Apollo 11, we cannot think about the many inventions that were done to make this mission a success.

Space investigations have always been fascinating. In turn, these lead to many innovations and inventions. What is amazing is, that many of the inventions done for Apollo 11 have made their way into our daily lives and yes, they are being used every single day without fail or technical glitches.

Here are some of the amazing inventions which have made our lives easier:

1. Sneakers: Shock-absorbing soles were the requirement of the hour. A NASA engineer came up with the idea of Compression Chamber midsole. They also got a patent for this. So now we know how lightweight running shoes which don’t break under pressure came into existence.

2. Camera Phones: The tiny camera in the latest mobile phones is yet another invention by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The small camera was invented to fit it in the spacecraft without being damaged with the immense pressure and at the same time maintaining the scientific quality. This technology is used by most of the cameras these days.

3. Water Purifiers: Small and lightweight water purifier units were made by NASA. These were used to purify water that was for human consumption in the space flight. The unit worked without any regular monitoring. Silver ions were used which killed any bacteria present in the water. This invention turned out to be very fruitful for daily use as well. The reason behind bringing it to use in daily use was that at that time chlorine was used which would dissipate due to heat or sunlight.

4. Vacuum Cleaners: These are very commonly used for vacuuming the house. But when these were invented they were used for the purpose of collecting samples from the lunar surface. Later they turned into cordless vacuum cleaners.

5. Vacuum-packed Food: The vacuum-packed food which is widely available at all the supermarkets was first invented by NASA. This invention was done in order to take care that the food does not spoil in space. The benefits of the vacuum packaging led to the prevention of the microorganisms from spreading and making the astronauts sick. Also, the astronauts got food with which they were familiar.

6. Polymer Fibre: The material polymer is made of long chains of molecules which display properties against heat resistance and toughness. A fire disaster, which led to the death of three crew members of Apollo 1 led to the awareness of flammable material. In the year 1950, Carl Marvelfirst invented polymer fibre. This fibre got famous because of NASA as it was tested under extreme conditions. It is now widely used to make uniforms for firefighters.

These inventions have definitely made our lives easier. Similarly, there are many such inventions which are actually made for a different reason but address to a different niche altogether. But whatever it is, the world of inventions is fascinating with more to look for every time.

People are always trying something new. This way the young minds create amazing inventions. Some of these become a huge success while some of the inventions die even before the foundation for the same has been placed.

As per Kennedy’s research, people generally invent something new and useful when they are actually not thinking about it. And yes, their source of inspiration is the audience who may like to use the final end product.

They say that “necessity is the mother of all inventions“. Agreed that many inventions are based behind the famous phrase. However, some inventions have had a twisted fate and none the less went on to become the next big thing. There are thousands of inventors there but the ones who have made accidental innovations and have made it big are definitely lucky.

Here are some accidental yet famous and amazing inventions!

1. Penicillin: This is an accidental discovery by Sir Alexander Fleming, who was at the verge of giving up when his medical experiments failed. While cleaning his experiment he found mould on the petri dish. This mould did not allow bacteria to grow around it. Out of curiosity, he started growing this mould and found that it contains the antibiotic Penicillin. This invention was definitely a breakthrough and it made history.

2. Matchsticks: When British Pharmacist John Walker was working under a lamp, stirring his chemicals, he saw a dried lump on the stirring stick. He tried to scrape it off, but instead, it sparked into a bright flame. On seeing the flame he got an idea and the matchsticks were born.

3. Non-Stick Pans – Teflon: When chemist Roy Plunkett was trying to work on a new form of CFC, he landed up creating some weird white flakes. These flakes later turned out to be a high melting point lubricant. This is now applied as a coating to all the non-stick pans.

4. Safety Glass: While working in his lab, chemist Édouard Bénédictus accidentally dropped the glass flask. But despite being of glass the flask did not shatter into pieces as it was lined with plastic cellulose nitrate. Later he patented it and now it is widely being used in the gas masks and cars.

5. Microwave Oven: Percy Spencer may not have thought that he is going to invent the microwave when he was experimenting with the radar related vacuum tubes. While working on this, he observed that the candy bar in his pocket had started melting. He carefully used this knowledge to make popcorns and then applied for a patent for a microwave.

6. Post-it Notes: Spenser Silver was working on making a super-strong adhesive. But instead, he landed making up an adhesive with low strength. This was later on used to paste church books as they were ripping off. But finally, the glue was used in making post-its.

If you know of some amazing accidental invention then please share it with us at Bots ‘N Brains. You can also join us to share some innovative ideas which can change one of the many problems faced by the people of our country.

If you ever talk to children they have infinite ideas and imaginations how they can make this world a better place. Mostly, they are just busy talking about their invisible invention. If at times like this you ask them to draw about what they are thinking you will be amazed to see how they tackle and think about a problem.

A group of children between the ages 5-11 years in Australia and the UK were asked to design inventions which according to them would make this world a better place. The results were not only amazing but also mind-blowing as these children came up with ideas from an ocean organiser to a rubbish eater to a gun sucker.

These drawings which nave been collected for Future Founders are breathtaking and there are a few which are being worked on to make them a reality.

Take a Look at Some of these Cool Inventions

1 . Olly, The Ocean Organiser:

Inventor: Daisy, Age: 9 years

As per Daisy, Olly is a machine which will help to keep the oceans clean. It will capture all the garbage in a giant net. It will work through solar-powered propellers. It will also have eyes so that it does not hurt the fish.

2. Cody the Carer

Inventor: Laura, Age: 9 years

Laura’s, Cody the carer is a friendly robot designed especially for taking care of the elderly people and addressing their smallest needs as well. Cody can tell whether a person is going to get ill, he can do the dishes with his waterproof hands and talk to old people so that they don’t feel lonely.

3. The Rubbish Eater

Inventor: Hannah, Age: 5 years

This 5-year-old is very worried about the depleting environment. She has come up with an amazing illustration which takes care of all the rubbish and deforestation in the world. The Rubbish Eater eats all the garbage and poops full-grown trees.

4. Gun Sucker Inner

Inventor: Harry, Age: 6 years

This 6-year-old wants to see a violent free world. He thinks of an invention which can suck all the guns and destroy them. He has designed high powered wheels so that the machine can be transported to where it is needed.

5. Frogainpet

Inventor: Luke, Age: 6 years

This is a special mixer which mixes hearts with hot water to create love, which is released into the air through steam. Those hearts which are not converted to steam are segregated and pushed to a conveyor belt. Further, these are shipped all over the world so that people can enjoy love.

6. The Food Spawner

Inventor: Mia, Age: 10 years

This is a magic microwave. Whenever you feel like rating something just type the food and the Spawner will do the rest. It works hard to get the best recipes and reproduce the snack/food you have been craving for.

7. Bob the Robot

Inventor: Lexie, Age: 8 years

The young inventor from the UK has designed Bob the Robot, who is a very friendly robot with wings and a kind heart. He fights against medical issues, cancer and world peace. He reminds people that not all disabilities are visible.

8. The Tizzer

Inventor: Lily, Age: 9 years

This is a machine which fixes just about anything in just a minute. It is easy to work with. Just point the Tizzer at the things you want to fix and turn the button. It just takes about 10 seconds for the laser to start and in turn fixes the object with its rays.

9. Dress-Me Machine

Inventor: Sam, Age: 6 years

Running late in the morning. Now the Dress-Me Machine can help you get ready. Once you select the outfit that you are going to wear on the screen, the machine helps you dress as you glide on the conveyor belt.

10. The Tree Rocket

Inventor: Tyler, Age: 6 years

This rocket is special as it is capable of transporting people from Australia to England in just a few seconds. The rocket built in the tree has windows on the top which allows the passengers to view outside while travelling. The trunk has a handle which provides access to people to board.

Some of these illustrations are amazing and can be easily adapted into real-time inventions. If we all see the world through a child’s eye then maybe we can also come up with solutions for problems.

If you have an innovation which can make a difference join us at Bots ‘N Brains to make a difference.

“To Travel is to Live” – Hans Christian Andersen

In the yesteryears, the tourist used to go through a lot of hectic processes in order to travel a place which they desired to explore. With no internet connectivity, people use to stand in line for hours in order to book their tickets for respective places. Once reaching there, they would again be in a dilemma regarding the hotels and restaurants. This was not only time consuming but people also found their vacations rather tiring.

Then entered an era of internet and it changed everything for travellers. All the tiring processes which people used to go through were made simple, smooth and available at their fingertips. People started booking bus/train/air tickets as well as hotel rooms and restaurant table bookings online. The fear of not getting travel tickets or hotel rooms disappeared. Various online platforms used to deliver information like different means of travel and relative prices, hotel room availability along with facilities, the nearby restaurants to the online users were available. These platforms not only provided them with the information but also helped them to do bookings and respective transactions in order to confirm bookings with small charges included for their services.

The Internet has helped travellers and tourists in many ways. Companies like Google, Bing, and Wikipedia help people gather knowledge and information as per their interest. The internet has helped tourists to plan their vacations in the most effective ways and at low cost. Earlier people used to buy maps of the country in order to plan the places they will be visiting and were unsure about the cost which they were likely to spend on the tour. But now, with many tours and travels online booking sites and physical offices, people find it much convenient for bookings and experience hassle-free vacations whenever and wherever they go.

People have started blogging about their travel journeys by sharing information about various places they have visited in order to help other co-travellers. Apps like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and other socialising sites help people to share pictures, information and upload videos – both live and pre-recorded.

As we are living in the era of digitalization, a lot of innovative products are in the market which helps the tourists and travellers to travel around the world quickly, safely and comfortably. In order to overcome the language barriers, Duolingo which is a well-designed app helps people to learn new languages with fun and experience. Google translate assists in knowing day-to-day words in different languages and helps to translate any sign or menu. The Pilot, a pair of small cordless earbuds, is one of the innovative product which translates conversations in real time from a foreign language to your native language.

During travelling, distance and time are much information needed for any traveller. This problem is solved by Google maps and other supporting apps such as Citymapper. Google maps provide time-distance information depending on the means of transportation like by car or bus/train or by walk. Also about public transports like buses and trains, the details are displayed along with the traffic congestions on the roads.

For staying purposes, online apps and websites like Airbnb, OYO, Trivago, Goibibo, etc. have provided good services and facilities with competitive prices. The sharing economy is a boom and the companies like Uber and Ola are helping travellers to reach their destination at an affordable cost. After the bullet metro trains, Hyperloop, the future of transportation, is going to change the way of travelling by minimizing the time required for long distances along with cosy experience.

Technology is evolving at a great pace and innovations like Virtual reality and Augmented reality is changing the way of looking at things. After wearing VR Goggles, an exciting experience can be achieved by the person who is looking at the world through it. But it’s still not clear whether it will also replace travelling. However, we definitely realize that high-quality photographs and video recordings are vital with regards to choosing where we need to travel, stay, or eat and VR will just enhance that experience.

The feeling of resfeber has virtually disappeared due to innovation in the travel industry. So what do you think will be the future of travelling and the travel industry? Leave the comment below and share your opinions and views as every opinion matters.

Today the tech companies as well as other industries, are increasingly based on innovation as their primary value driver. Developing IP portfolio is now a basic requirement even for a tech start-up that hopes to raise early-stage financing. Additionally, desire to acquire intellectual property, particularly patents and trade secrets know how that exists is the main reason behind most of the mergers and acquisitions transactions.

As a country, where Indian entrepreneurs are producing globally-competitive IP-driven innovations across themes such as healthcare and biotech, agriculture, energy and enterprise tech. All these innovations are enabled by cutting edge research and trends, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, internet of things etc. The transformation that these deep tech start-ups are trying to bring is phenomenal. But if their innovation is not protected, then the competitive advantage and sustainability of the business to cover R&D costs and generate profits won’t be there in the long term. Here are just a  few examples of Indian companies that will motivate you to patent your innovation.

Arrow Greentech Ltd. monetized 3 out 30 patents which will expire after 20 Years. These three patents generated revenues of Rs.450 Million p.a. over the last three years.

Innorel Systems, a world class innovative reliable solutions provider company both in solar as well as conventional systems. They have a core team having more than 34 patents amongst them.

Cosmic Circuits, a leading provider of analog and mixed signal intellectual property (IP) cores. Cosmic circuits was acquired by Cadence in May 2013. Cosmic’s IP strengthens Cadence’s side in its IP battle with Synopsys, giving it heads up in its solutions to address mobile, Cloud/datacenter and ‘Internet of Things’.

Forus Health is a Bengaluru based technology company that develops innovative products in the field of Ophthalmology to eradicate preventable blindness. The company has protected their technology with 14 patents. Forus Health’s systematic IP creation and management has allowed them to remain competitive in the growing healthcare industry worldwide.

Ittiam is a Bengaluru based technology company that was established in 2001. The company develops solutions in the areas consumer and mobility, digital and broadcast media, industry and defense had automobile infotainment. From the very beginning, Ittiam’s focus was on IP creation. Today, the company has over 128 granted and published patents for their unique inventions. Ittiam earns substantial revenue through licensing and royalty of their IP.

Recently there was a case of software IP infringement of an Indian firm named Reverie language Technologies by a Chinese tech firm. Reverie filed a case of software infringement against Chinese firm and won the verdict in its favor. The Chinese Tech firm has been restrained from using Reverie’s software.

Reverie issued that this incident has been an eye opener for them. It’s a warning for the larger Indian start-up community, as a reminder to keep IPs safe. We can’t let foreign companies, specially Chinese prey on our efforts, work and innovation. 

The number of patents granted by India shoot up by 50 per cent in 2017, keeping a trend of steep increases, according to UN’s World Intellectual Property Organisation(WIPO).

Lesson learned :

Start-ups should also focus in building successful IP portfolios for their businesses. Investors and Venture Capitalists like Yournest invests only in patent-led start-ups. Therefore, IP constitutes an important strategic, competitive and financial asset for start-ups. It is a valuable outcome of the creative and intellectual endeavors of individuals and organizations. They should take IP protection and portfolio strategy more seriously.

What if I tell you that approx. 80% valuation of S&P 500 companies is covered by their intangible assets i.e. intellectual properties (IP). To sustain in today’s competitive world, it has become mandatory for big companies and start-ups to protect their intangible assets along with tangible ones. Intangible assets include all form of intellectual property like trademarks, patents, copyrights, designs, brand values etc.  

Patents are no longer seen as merely protecting innovation but also considered as an important part of assets that can be sold through strategic decisions to generate huge revenues. Currently large enterprises are acquiring IP assets or start-ups itself for their IPs .

Patents and other IPs boost start-ups competitive advantage which they can leverage in years to come. Patents prevent others from using an invention, thereby keeping the competitors at bay. Patenting helps the innovators in generating money by licensing or selling the patent.

As an example, HCL Technologies, headquartered in Noida, plans to buy IBMs patented software products at whooping $1.8Bn deal.

It helps start-ups to introduce their invention to the market without the fear of infringement. Investors will get attracted towards an invention that has already been patented. It acquires the trust and confidence that the innovation has a promising future. Patents secure the position of the innovation in global markets sooner and quicker as the grant of patent will accelerate its creation. Without information leaking out to the public many smaller but similar deals are carried out every day.

Google bought Motorola not just for its business and brand name. With it, Google acquired more than 20,000 mobile patents of Motorola. Even after selling Motorola to Lenovo, Google has a vast patent portfolio.

Indeed filing patents is a good practice for start-ups to increase their valuation. Initially, filing a number of patent applications reinforces any claims to the innovative technology the start-up may have. In the later stages, owning a patent portfolio can become attractive and hence, can bolster to a large companies their strong position relative to competitors.

Wipro aimed to make $150 million from its intellectual property in FY2018-19. Bengaluru headquartered software service company had made a whooping revenue of $80 Million in financial year 2017-18 from its intellectual property led business. This strategy is on the lines of chief executive Abidali Neemuchwala’s strategy to extract more value form the segment.

Patents, especially for start-ups, are essential as they shield from competition, help to recover R&D costs involved and generate revenues.

Visit BotsNBrains to learn more about how to innovate and protect your innovation.

Computer implemented inventions are not abstract ideas within the scope of Alice decision as the PTO and lower courts have tend to believe. It has been a literal carnage by the administrative and judicial bodies on patents that even partially refers to computer implementation of the claimed invention in the description. PTO and the courts have re-introduced the mental steps doctrine in order to justify the abstract nature of such inventions claiming the use of a computer in the implementation of invention. Per them, anything that can be implemented via pen and paper involving mental faculty is an abstract idea. To that end, they have gone on to re-interpret the doctrine from “intended to be” implemented to “can be” implemented mentally.

Mental Steps Doctrine?? What’s that! Before diving further in, lets understand what the fateful doctrine was originally supposed to mean. The mental steps doctrine reads that any inventions that “can be performed in the human mind, or by a human using a pen and paper” is not worthy of patent protection. The first instance of application of this doctrine can be seen in In re Heritage wherein the claims were directed to a method of “producing a porous coated fibre board” that included coating samples with varying amounts of material, testing them for sound reduction coefficient, selecting a specimen within the range of coefficients, and using the amount of material applied to the selected specimen as the criterion for further coatings. There was no disclosure of any apparatus or machine used to make the said selection.  In fact, all of these steps had to be carried out by a person using his subjective judgment.

However, this doctrine has now be extended to sweeping breadths encompassing digital image processing, communication networks, text mining and even to oil well drilling . How did this happen?? Again, this requires a historical backdrop.

Prior to the information age, a “computer” was not a machine at all; rather, it was a job title: “a person employed to make calculations.” Even the Oxford English Dictionary mentions as such. Those meanings conveniently illustrate the interchangeability of certain mental processes and basic digital computation. As per the highest court in In re Benson, this helps explain why the use of a computer in an otherwise patent-ineligible process for no more than its most basic function—making calculations or computations—fails to circumvent the prohibition against patenting abstract ideas and mental processes.

The court relied upon a work by Understanding Digital Computers (1964) by Ronald Benrey for deciding whether the work performed by computers were merely mental processes. The book recited that a digital computer solves a problem by actually doing arithmetic in much the same way a person would by hand.  

I fail to understand how court could have relied on this work, which was written for introducing fascinating computers to general people, for abstracting the tremendous computational capabilities of this digital machine to a human mind. The court failed to read the other definition in the same dictionary which defines computer as “An electronic device for storing and processing data, typically in binary form, according to instructions given to it in a variable program”. Even with respect to the relied upon work, author Ronald Benrey explains in his introduction to UDC, in 1964

“advances in electronic digital computer technology [had] made possible many spectacular scientific achievements that would have seemed like ‘science fiction’ three or four decades ago,” and computers were “generally pictured as incredibly complex electronic machines, aglow with flashing lights.”

The digital operations of a computer are not “interchangeable” with the mental process of a human. Mere fact that both can be described in a similar way does not make them the same. If the programmed operations of a computer are interchangeable with the mental processes of a human, then so too are the mechanical operations of an adding machine, since these operations can likewise be described as the “identical procedures” performed by a human mind. Certainly, this result is not correct, and thereby negating the “interchangeability” premise taken by anti-software advocacy groups.

The landmark decision by the Supreme Court in Alice vs CLS bank in 2014 created a stir across the tech industry followed by a wave of patents related to computer implementation being invalidated by PTAB and courts. However, on a detailed scrutiny of the judgment reveals that the court nowhere, in the 21-page opinion, held that computer implemented inventions are not patentable subject matter. In fact, the court even doesn’t use the term software even once.  The court while upholding the patent eligibility of computer implemented inventions expressly recognized that the countless incredible technological inventions that form the bedrock of our innovation economy deserve patent protection. The patents at issue in this case disclosed a computer implemented scheme for mitigating “settlement risk” (i.e., the risk that only one party to a financial transaction will pay what it owes) by using a third-party intermediary. The patent was invalidated on grounds of being an abstract idea related to fundamental economic practice, not that computer implemented invention do not warrant legal rights. The court, although skipped detailed discussion on what an abstract idea is, held that any pre-existing fundamental truth would be an abstract idea.

The court explained that its not the case of conventional steps using computers being added to the claims make the claims patent ineligible. It’s about the well-known methods in industry practice being described at a high level of generality using convention general purpose computer. (Read how to overcome drafting challenges for computer implemented inventions). The court has also expressly stated that any claim that purports to improve the functioning of the computer itself or allows improvement in any other technology domain is definitely eligible for patent protection.

The court went on to explain that

“At some level, “all inventions . . . embody, use, reflect, rest upon, or apply laws of nature, natural phenomena, or abstract ideas.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 2). Thus, an invention is not rendered ineligible for patent simply because it involves an abstract concept.Application[s] of such concepts “‘to a new and useful end,’” we have said, remain eligible for patent protection.”

While deciding whether the claims of the subject invention does something more than the general-purpose computer, each claim element and then their ordered combination has to checked to identify whether it performs in a manner different to the conventional computers. There is so much material out their summarizing the Alice decision but simply reciting that the invention must do something more than the general-purpose computer. Let’s clear it out to our readers what exactly this second step of Alice framework means. If each of the claim elements describe a step which doesn’t require the computer function in a special manner, it would be deemed as conventional practice. Generalizing further on this for better understanding, method claims of a particular invention related to authenticating a bank account transaction involves:

receiving a request for a transaction from a trading account associated with a user; – No special configuration or program required for any computer to implement this. Normal input/output functions available on general purpose computer would achieve this

receiving an alpha-numeric code for an authentication of the trading account associated with the user; No special configuration or program required for any computer to implement this. Normal input/output functions available on general purpose computer would achieve this

authenticating the alpha-numeric code from an information repository wherein the information repository comprises a mapping index of alpha-numeric codes to trading account; No special configuration or program required for any computer to implement this. The said repository is nothing but a look-up table stored in general memory of the computer

executing, in response to the authentication, the transaction from the trading account.  No special configuration or program required for any computer to implement this. Normal input/output functions available on general purpose computer would achieve this

However, lets assume another scenario wherein the computer is programmed to convert the alpha-numeric code to a control signal using a cryptographic hash function and user’s bio-metric and is then sent to an electronic intermediary which utilizes an algorithm to detect any impostor/fraud with the alpha-numeric codes. Now it would definitely not be a conventional computer , subject to the fact the algorithm that is being used to identify fraud activity is unique. This is a general example to help people understand what does something more exactly means in Alice test. Even the algorithm in the latter case may be determined as something already existing and which case we need to identify some other features to be added to the claims.

The confusion surrounding the fate of computer implemented inventions are primarily due to lower courts flagrant non-adherence to Supreme Courts directions and misconceived notions around suitability of computer implemented inventions for patent protection. As much we would like to agree that these are mere by product of inflammatory rhetoric and unscientific and unreliable studies. This blog highlights the premise which leads us to believe so.

Computer technology has been one of the greatest technological innovations of this age and undoubtedly deserves protection from free-riding and illegal reproduction. The primary reason why such patents (especially in the realm of AI and blockchain) are facing such opposition and unfortunate discrimination is the sheer lack of information and expertise required to deal in prosecution of this advanced technology.

Don’t believe us?? Let’s hear out Judge Posner on his views on why computer implemented inventions are inefficient and improper:

“a shortage of patent examiners with the requisite technical skills, the limited technical competence of judges and jurors, the difficulty of assessing damages for infringement of a component rather than a complete product, and the instability of the software industry because of its technological dynamism.”[1]

His Majesty cites pharmaceutical industry as a perfect industry for which patent system works and in his words “pharmaceuticals are the poster child for the patent system”.  He further adds that

“Software innovation tends to be piecemeal — not entire devices, but components, so that a software device (a cellphone, a tablet, a laptop, etc.) may have tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of separate components (bits of software code or bits of hardware), each one arguably patentable. The result is huge patent thickets, creating rich opportunities for trying to hamstring competitors by suing for infringement — and also for infringing, and then challenging the validity of the patent when the patentee sues you.”

I am still wondering about the argument made by his lordship on the piecemeal approach of software innovation, as if I could have patented a whole car in the automobile industry or for that matter a Robot ☹ Every invention is incremental in nature and there are few disruptions and primarily disruptions relate to discovery of scientific principles. Innovations are always a manifestation of those scientific principles and hence deserve protection for the ingenuity of implementation in a way useful for the society.

Let’s get back in time to understand the irony in Judge Posner’s statement. Judge Posner believes pharmaceutical industry to be best fit for patent protection as per his understanding and software being a misfit.  The brilliant Judge Learned Hand, also one of Judge Posner’s jurisprudential heroes, complained of his lack of technical expertise in deciding the new biochemical patents that would in a few decades give birth to the modern pharmaceutical industry. In his famous opinion in Parke-Davis & Co. v. H.K. Mulford & Co., Judge Hand called

“attention to the extraordinary condition of the law which makes it possible for a man without any knowledge of even the rudiments of chemistry to pass upon such questions as these. The inordinate expense of time is the least of the resulting evils, for only a trained chemist is really capable of passing upon such facts.”

Judge Hand lamented the “confusion the intricacy of the subject-matter causes” and that judges like him were “blindly groping among testimony upon matters wholly out of their ken.”

This clearly explains that the whole era of confusion and negativity built around protection of computer implemented invention is not due to the fact that such inventions are not suitable for patent protections but due to misguided, reductionist logic common to econometricians and a lack of understanding of complex inventions that requires immense intellectual labour and perseverance. Based on the above example, we might find computer implemented inventions being touted as the best fit for patent protection somewhere around 2060s and space travel being designated as abstract ideas and misfit for patent protection.

God help Innovation.