Hi. My name is Mark Trenner. I’m a patent attorney. I’ve been writing patent applications for over 15 years now. I first started my own law firm, the Trenner Law Firm, in 2004 and I like to help individual inventors, start up small businesses and entrepreneurs protect their inventions with patents.
Today I’m here to answer the question can Inventors patent software. The short answer is yes, you can patent software, at least as of today. The law is always changing and this year, 2014, actually last year, there have been a lot of different court opinions, Even the US Supreme Court weighed in on this. Actually, a couple of times in the past decade they have issued some really important decisions, since 2014, and they really restricted the ability to get a software patent. Does that mean you shouldn’t apply? No it doesn’t. What it means is you should talk to a patent attorney who can guide you through the process and help you decide whether your invention for software can be patented. I always say there are a lot of software companies out there, some big name brand software companies, and you know who I’m talking about, that file patent applications for their software every day. They are still filing patent applications for their software, they have patent applications pending and they have patents that have issued and they are not stopping. They may be writing them a little different but they are still filing patent applications for their software. So, if anybody tells you that you can’t patent software, go talk to a patent attorney about it. You can’t patent software that already exists. You also can’t patent something that has been done manually and all you are doing is running it on the computer now. That probably won’t make it through the patent office. The examiners are really cracking down on that and it’s going to be really hard to get something issued. But if you have something new and unique, you should certainly talk to a patent attorney about it.
People always ask can I get a patent for my phone app. The answer is yes you can. That is just software. It’s just software that’s developed to run on a mobile device, on a phone or a tablet, and that falls under the same category as software, any software. So, again if you have a new idea for a phone app., go talk to a patent attorney. They may or might not be able to guarantee you will get a patent issued. And, even if you get a patent through, who knows what’s going to happen in the Court, in the coming years. But, you definitely don’t want to just give up because someone said you can’t patent software.
And then, people ask me too, what if I apply for a software patent and the examiner rejects it? Well, it’s like with any patent application you file. The examiner is going to go out there and find other prior art and they may make a rejection. They may make a rejection that it is a software patent and it can’t be patented. Those are all things you can talk to with your patent attorney about. Today I was just here to answer the question can you patent software. The answer is yes, maybe, but go talk to your patent attorney.