Business method patents are a class of patents which disclose and claim new methods of doing business. This includes new types of e-commerce, insurance, banking and tax compliance etc. Business method patents are a relatively new species of patent and there have been several reviews investigating the appropriateness of patenting business methods. Nonetheless, they have become important assets for both independent inventors and major corporations.
In general, inventions are eligible for patent protection if they pass the tests of patentability: patentable subject matter, novelty, inventive step or non-obviousness, and industrial applicability (or utility).
A business method may be defined as "a method of operating any aspect of an economic enterprise".
On January 7, 1791, France passed a patent law that stated that "Any new discovery or invention, in all types of industry, is owned by its author...". Inventors paid a fee depending upon the desired term of the patent (5, 10, 15 years), filed a description of the invention and were granted a patent. There was no preexamination. Validity was determined in courts. 14 out of 48 of the initial patents were for financial inventions. In June 1792, for example, a patent was issued to inventor F. P. Dousset for a type of tontine in combination with a lottery. These patents raised concerns and were banned and declared invalid in an amendment to the law passed in 1792.
In Britain, a patent was issued in 1778 to John Knox for a "[p]lan for assurances on lives of persons from 10 to 80 years of age." At this time in British law, patents could only be issued for manufactured objects, not manufacturing processes.
Patents have been granted in the United States on methods for doing business since the US patent system was established in 1790. The first financial patent was granted on March 19, 1799, to Jacob Perkins of Massachusetts for an invention for "Detecting Counterfeit Notes." All details of Perkins' invention, which presumably was a device or process in the printing art, were lost in the great Patent Office fire of 1836.
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
This course will cover all the aspects of product design and system engineering from learning relevant methods to the actual implementation in a hands-on practice of product development.
This is a collection of lectures on "structured innovation systems," codified approaches to stimulating and managing the process of innovation. Some of the systems to be covered may be Design Thinking
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention. In most countries, patent rights fall under private law and the patent holder must sue someone infringing the patent in order to enforce their rights. The procedure for granting patents, requirements placed on the patentee, and the extent of the exclusive rights vary widely between countries according to national laws and international agreements.
By the end of the 19th century, an international order had emerged for patents, allowing business actors to use patents in many countries concurrently, and thus supporting a new phase in the development of industrial capitalism. Centered on Europe in spite ...
2023
This thesis investigates the economic effect of patents and the patent system through the lens of patent commercialisation. The thesis is composed of four chapters, where each chapter is an independent scientific paper. In the first chapter, we present a n ...
This paper assesses the extent to which the international migration of inventors affects innovation in the receiving country. Drawing on a novel database that maps the migratory patterns of inventors, we exploit the end of the Soviet Union and the conseque ...