Indian Patent Office Issues New Guidelines on Computer Related Inventions
25-Feb-2016
NEW DELHI – The Indian Patents Office (IPO) has recalled the guidelines on Computer Related Inventions (CRI) of 2015 and issued a new set of guidelines that are in harmony with the Indian Patents Act of 1970.
The said Act states that a mathematical or business method or a computer program per se or algorithms are non-patentable.
These CRI Guidelines have reset the clock to the position prior to 2015 and are also in synchronization with the laws of USA and Europe.
The guidelines provide a test to determine the patentability of CRIs, as follows:
(1) Properly construe the claim and identify the actual contribution;
(2) If the contribution lies only in mathematical method, business method or algorithm, deny the claim;
(3) If the contribution lies in the field of computer program, check whether it is claimed in conjunction with a novel hardware and proceed to other steps to determine patentability with respect to the invention. The computer program in itself is never patentable. If the contribution lies solely in the computer program, deny the claim. If the contribution lies in both the computer program as well as hardware, proceed to other steps of patentability.