🚀 go-pugleaf

The article below appeared in a feature on the British Technology Group
(BTG) in "Software Echo", the journal of the Scottish Software Community,
issue 2.

The BTG is an organisation concerned with the "exploitation" (their words) of
new technology, including developments that result from SERC-funded research in
the UK academic community. (SERC is the British Science and Engineering
Research Council - the main funding body for UK scientific academic research.)
Thus its opinions on software patenting are of not inconsiderable importance,
which makes their current stance all the more worrying to those who have
observed the impact of software patents in other parts of the world.

There is an agreement between SERC and the BTG over expoloitation of any
interesting and potentially profitable innovations, in some cases to the point
of automatic notification of all patentable results. Researchers may be
interested in establishing whether their own departments have any policy
regarding the patenting of new algorithms.

The BTG representative who edited the section is:

  Dr. Eugene Sweeney,
  Electronics & Information Technology Division,
  The British Technology Group,
  101 Newington Causeway,
  London SE1 6BU.

  Tel: 071 403 6666
  Fax: 071 403 0320

My thanks go to Steve Tweedie <st111@uk.ac.cam.phx> for pointing this article
out to me.

--Clive.

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PATENTING SOFTWARE


This is an area in which BTG believes academic and research organisations can
make the most signficant contributions in the long term. Research groups in the
UK are well known for producing ideas that are important in computing science.
In the past, it was believed that these innovations could not be protected by
patenting because algorithms were not patentable. However, recent case law,
particularly in the USA, suggests that this is no longer true. Many major US
computer and software manufacturers now regularly file patent applications on
software concepts.

Areas in which BTG believe valuable, and patentable, software innovations could
arise are:

i)   Parallel processing, eg new algorithms that exploit the parallel
     architecture.

ii)  Language design, eg functional programming languages that enable
     algorithms to be specified in a computer-independent manner.

iii) Knowledge-based systems, eg natural-language recognition.

iv)  Logic programming, with particular reference to safety-critical systems
     and the corresponding design of integrated circuits.

v)   Data compression, eg image or speech compression.

Software is, of course, automatically protected by copyright. This normally
belongs to the author (or his/her employer, depending on conditions of
employment).

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