Software and
Databases
Italy adheres to the European Patent Convention and the Italian
Patent Law and its interpretation are in accordance with the EPC
and the tendency of the European Patent Office.
According to section 52 of the EPC, article 45 Legislative Decree
No. 30/2005 states that programs for computers, if considered
as such, are not considered as patentable.
After the TRIPS Agreement, that does not exclude software patentability,
and the recent international developments (mainly in USA and Japan),
that allow software patentability, a new interpretation of section
52 of the EPC is presently being asserted that restricts the prohibition
to patentability and considers software inventions having a technical
nature, i.e. software inventions being technical solutions to
technical problems, (and business method inventions implemented
by means of technical software as well) as patentable.
Therefore, if a software invention is a technical contribution
to the state of the art, such software invention shall be patentable
at the EPO and in Italy as well. This is, for instance, the case
of an inventive software that implements a process to make a computer
working through an improved resource management or that controls
a manufacturing process or that accomplishes an automation process
or that realises a method of processing data representing physical
entities
. A patent protects the algorithms and/or the logic underlying
the software, independently of its specific implementation.
Barzanò & Zanardo has specific expertise in software
field and may give the best technical and legal assistance in
software patent cases.
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