Correspondence: Ewan Nettleton, Bristows, 100 Victoria Embankment, London, EC4Y 0DH, UK. E-mail: ewan.nettleton@bristows.com

¹is a senior associate solicitor in the Intellectual Property Department at Bristows. He specialises in Intellectual Property Law with an emphasis on litigation. He has an MA in Chemistry and a D Phil in Protein Chemistry and is particularly interested in matters relating to the IT and pharmaceutical industries.

Abstract

Computer software is an essential resource for database marketers, with a wide variety of products available with increasingly sophisticated functionality. However, some database marketers and the software companies that supply them may not have considered the extent to which such software products can be protected as patented inventions. This issue has been the subject of much debate in recent years, and has led to various high-profile cases in both the English Patents Courts and the European Patent Office. This paper looks at the current state of play and assesses whether we are any closer to knowing what is patentable and what is not.