The imprecise wording of article 52 of the European Patent Convention lead to uncertainty with regard to the patentability of inventions related to financial methods and processes at the European Patent Office (EPO). This article summarizes the relevant legislation in Europe and contrasts it...

One area that has expanded the scope of patent subject matter concerns the patentability of a method of doing business, especially in the context of computer technology, cyber networks, or as a method of e-commerce. In recent years, the USA has taken the lead in recognising the patentability of...

The intellectual property (IP) system plays an important role in the development and diffusion of technologies by determining the institutional context in which transactions occur. This article reviews the recent EPO report ‘Patents and Clean Energy Technologies: Bridging the Gap between...

We analyze the duration of the patent examination process at the European Patent Office (EPO). Our data contain information related to the patent’s economic and technical relevance, EPO capacity and workload as well as novel citation measures which are derived from the EPO’s search...

Patent system in Europe has undergone significant changes during the 1970s around the establishment of the European Patent Office (EPO), and this paper tries to quantify the influence of such policy changes on the private value of European patents. Based on the patent renewal records, I estimate...

The aim of this paper is to study the determinants of the outcomes of patent applications (withdrawal, refusal or grant). The application process at the European Patent Office is modelled in three stages, using a Trivariate Probit model with double selectivity correction in order to test whether...

We analyze the duration of patent examination at the European Patent Office (EPO). Our data contain variables that are correlates of the applicants’ and examiners’ assessments of a patent’s economic and technical relevance as well as ex post-application citation measures which indicate the...

In the United States, the Patent and Trademarks Office and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit are extending patent protection to the invention of new Internet business methods. The article argues that this discourages innovation and rewards existing monopolies. First, the article...

There has been a wide-spread misconception based on the imprecise wording of Art. 52 of the European Patent Convention that the protection of business methods by patents is prohibited in Europe. This article investigates the legal framework set by patent laws with respect to the patentability of...

This study presents the results of an empirical test of two hypotheses concerning the quality of a group of data processing patents on methods of doing business. The hypotheses are motivated by two frequently voiced criticisms of these patents: that their scope is overly broad and that they cite...