Change of approach for computer program patents

Some computer programs can be patented, the High Court has ruled. The decision in Astron Clinica Ltd and others v Comptroller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks has prompted the UK Intellectual Property Office (UK-IPO) to change its approach to patents for computer programs.

I t says it will not appeal against Mr Justice Kitchin’s ruling that patents should be allowed to protect a computer program if the program implements a patentable invention.

The law on patentable subject matter in the field of computer-implemented inventions was substantially reinterpreted by the Court of Appeal in 2006, in Aerotel Ltd v Telco Holdings Ltd and others; Re Macrossan’s Application. Followingthat judgment, UK-IPO concluded that claims to computer programs or to programs on a carrier were not allowable.

However, in Astron, a group of patent applicants successfully argued that if their computer-implemented methods and apparatus were patentable, they should also be able to protect the underlying computer programs themselves. Kitchin J said: “I do not detect anything in the reasoning of the Court of Appeal which suggests that all computer programs are necessarily excluded.”