Comment by chrisseaton

7 years ago

All major tech companies file patents - shouldn't be surprising that it's going to be part of the job.

9 comments

chrisseaton

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jcims  7 years ago

Not just tech companies. I work at a bank and we've filed a bunch of software/algorithm/tech patents.

  • specialist  7 years ago

    I used to write software for print manufacturing. Where the ink meets the paper for books, newspapers, packaging. Our biggest customer was granted multiple patents for our product's core functionality. A full decade after they started using our wares. We had no idea until I was idly researching patents in our field.

    The patent system is broken.

arendtio  7 years ago

How about SAP? Aren't they a European company where software patents have no legal force? Do they fill patents for the US too?

  • adamt  7 years ago

    It's not entirely true that in Europe that software patents don't exist.

    From: https://fsfe.org/campaigns/swpat/swpat.en.html "The European Patent Convention states that software is not patentable. But laws are always interpreted by courts, and in this case interpretations of the law differ. So the European Patents Office (EPO) grants software patents by declaring them as "computer implemented inventions". "

    There's 20,000 hits for a Google patent search for patents assigned to SAP (https://patents.google.com/?assignee=SAP+SE+)

    • arendtio  7 years ago

      Thanks for clarifying. While I kinda expected SAP to have some software patents, I didn't know that software patents or 'computer implemented inventions' were still a thing in Europe.

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  • jacques_chester  7 years ago

    Europe has software patents but (this was the advice given to me) the bar to obtain one is very high.

    Otherwise you may apply for patents in any country that has them. And indeed you need to file in each country where you want protection.