Internet of Things and Patents: Towards The IoT Patent Wars?

Yıl 2017, Cilt: 3 Sayı: 2, 47 - 66, 27.12.2017

Guido Noto La Diega

Öz

Intellectual
property is a key, albeit overlooked, issue when it comes to the Internet of
Things (IoT). It is still unclear, for instance, to what extent trade secrets
can be used to prevent the user from controlling their own device (the
so-called right to hack) and to hinder interoperability. Likewise, it is still
to be fully explored to what extent intellectual property (database rights) can
be used to prevent data portability. This paper focuses on patent law and,
namely, on computer-implemented inventions by giving account of the approaches
followed in Europe, United States, and India. With the IoT patenting activity
being over eight times larger than the general worldwide increase in pat­enting,
research on this field appears critical. The occasion of this study is the
adoption in 2016 of the final version of the Indian guidelines on the
examination of computer-related inventions, which have been surprisingly
overlooked in the legal literature. The main idea is that the Internet of
Things will lead to a dramatic increase of applications for soft­ware patents
and if examiners, courts, and legislators will not be careful, there is the
concrete risk of a surreptitious generalised grant of patents for computer
programs as such (in Europe) and for abstract ideas (in the United States). The
clarity provided by the Indian guidelines, following a lively public debate,
can constitute good practices that Eu­rope, the United States, as well as the
Republic of Turkey, should take into account.With the increase of IoT patents,
it is foreseeable the shift from the smartphone wars to the IoT wars, as
evidenced by some recent litigation between Fitbit and Jawbone. The (perhaps
cold) war seems impending, due to a number of reasons, such as the complexity
of the supply chain, the several domains in which the IoT is divided and the
composite nature of the IoT devices. 

Anahtar Kelimeler

Internet of Things, IoT, software patents, computer-implemented inventions, computer-related in¬ventions, software inventions, patenting, patent law, computer programs, patentable subject matter, patentability, exclusion

Kaynakça

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