Sunday, September 7, 2008

Software patent has not withered on Indian radar

Microsoft along with an Indian subsidiary has applied for a patent on file snapshots and a possible version maintainence system. The two thing required to get a patent in India is that there should not be any prior art to it and the patent application should present a new innovative step. However, we do not evaluate these issues for this particular patent because software patents are disallowed by Indian Patent law.

There is small backdoor created by Indian Patent office in granting software patents. In the the recent draft of patent manual (a guide for patent examiners in granting patents), there is a provision for granting software patents. However, these provision do not have the force of law and may be invalidated when challenged in a court.