Patents for Internet web sites

[sunny73]

What is the name of your state? WI


I am wondering what kind of patent law is available for programming/scripts within a site. For example, if a company worked on a program/script calculator function and this program is very unique to their industry could they file a patent for that portion of their site.

Basically, I'm looking to see if a patent would be the answer to guard against a competitor trying to steal the technology from the competitor that created it. Also, note that the company would not be using any freeware code to develop the program.

Any help is appreciated!

 

[divgradcurl]

Whether or not you can patent a piece of software depends on exactly what it does and how it does it; if you want to look at the real nitty-gritty concerning patenting software, you could check out the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure, section 2106, available online at http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/mpep_e8_2100.pdf

There is probably any number of books that give lay explanations concerning the patentability of software; I don't know of any offhand, but perhaps another contributor to this forum does.

In general, you can only patent "what" the software does, not the software itself. Amazon patented "one click shopping", not the code that makes it work. So, in order to determine if your script is patentable, you need to analyze what it does. If all it does is make conversions or calculations, it probably won't be patentable, as algorithms are generally not patentable.

You can always copyright the software; this is much simpler and cheaper than a patent, and you will have some copyright protection even if you don't register with the copyright office. However, a copyright will only protect the code itself, not the idea behind it, so someone could develop their own way of doing the same thing. Of course, if they copy any of your code to do it, then you could get them for copyright infringement.

If you think you have some novel technology, then your best bet would be to talk with a patent attorney.

I am not a lawyer, and this isn't even close to being legal advice.