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Case law

Revision as of 14:57, 29 August 2011 by Ciaran (talk | contribs) (* See: France (various subsections))

Case law is a special subset of court cases which give definitions about how patent law is to be interpreted in the given country. The most important cases define what is and isn't patentable subject matter.

There are many criteria on which a court can rule a patent to be invalid. A court might say the patent wasn't original enough, or wasn't sufficiently innovative. Those court rulings are not very interesting for our goal of excluding software from patentability. An example is the ruling in Germany which invalidated Microsoft's Fat32 patent.[reference needed]


Examples of useful rulings include Aerotel v. Telco (2006, UK), and in re Bilski (2008, USA).

Case law around the world

(For general litigation, see List of lawsuits)

Australia

Canada

Israel

United States of America

See: Case law in the USA

European Union

England and Wales

See: Case law in the UK

Germany

See: Case law in Germany

Netherlands

France

  • See: France (various subsections)

Related pages on ESP Wiki

External links