Society

Recently, the computer industry has been exploring anew the question of whether programs for operating an electronic digital computer are or should be patentable.

This paper is concerned with the question of what constitutes infringement of a copyright on a book or other nondramatic literary work when the work is fed into a computer and is indexed, analyzed, partially reprinted, or otherwise utilized by the computer to produce eye-readable output. The question of copyrightability of programs and infringement of copyrights on programs is also discussed. The paper is directed primarily to a discussion of the present law. Some aspects of the proposed new copyright law are also included. General recommendations are made with respect to the proposed revisions of the copyright law.

Suppose a potentially very valuable experimental multi-computer system is being designed by you and your group. You feel you have made at least a system invention. In your Company scientists and engineers are responsible for initiating invention disclosures.

The term joint inventorship asks but does not necessarily answer the question, “Who is the true inventor of a computer?” I will try to show how “wrong” inventors are joined, how such improper joinder can be avoided, and its dangers. While the law permits the addition or subtraction of improperly joined inventors, it does not permit the substitution of one set of inventors for another set of inventors. Thus, despite corrective weapons, there are some pitfalls which must be avoided.

It is not surprising that computer programs are not listed in the patent statutes as one of the categories of patentable invention. When these categories were defined many years ago, computers and computer programs were unknown. Therefore, if computer programs are to be patentable within the framework of existing patent law they must fall within one of the specifically defined categories of processes, machines, manufactures or compositions of matter.