Benjamin Moore & Co v. Canada: Reshuffling Patentable Subject-Matter

Intellectual property offices are having difficulty drawing the line between patentable and unpatentable subject-matter, especially when it comes to computer-related inventions. The difficulty lies in the balance between determining whether an “invention” is merely an abstract idea and/or a mathemat...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inIIC - International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law Vol. 54; no. 4; pp. 573 - 584
Main Authors Gaon, Aviv, Wong, Ryan
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.04.2023
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Intellectual Property
IT Law
Law
Law and Criminolgy
Media Law
Opinion
Patents
Subject-matter
Intellectual property
Computer programs
Online AccessGet full text
ISSN0018-9855
2195-0237
DOI10.1007/s40319-023-01324-9

Cover

More Information
Summary:Intellectual property offices are having difficulty drawing the line between patentable and unpatentable subject-matter, especially when it comes to computer-related inventions. The difficulty lies in the balance between determining whether an “invention” is merely an abstract idea and/or a mathematical algorithm or has “something extra” which makes it worthy of patent protection. To incentivize innovation, an appropriate test for patentable subject-matter must be clearly laid out. This paper sets out to examine how the test for patentable subject-matter has evolved in the US and Canada. We focus our discussion on a recent decision that promises to be a significant development for patentable subject-matter in Canada and provide our preliminary thoughts on the decision.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
ISSN:0018-9855
2195-0237
DOI:10.1007/s40319-023-01324-9