India's Soft Corner for Software Patents: an empirical study
summary
Empirical data shows software patent grants rise from ~200 to 1,000 annually between FY2014–15 and FY2021–22, with a spike tied to the CRI guidelines and case law that treats any software with a technical effect as patentable; 90% to foreign companies and many examiner orders lack written reasoning. Examples include patents awarded to TCS, Google and Microsoft for automated data scrubbing, web search and streaming methods. Proposed fixes are removing the per se loophole, stricter examination rules codified in law, and exploring open‑source patent licensing.
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chapters (17)
- 0:00Introduction
- 0:29Need for software patent study
- 1:11Defining inventions and patents
- 2:58Software patents in India
- 4:23'Per se' loopholes
- 5:46Legal contradictions
- 7:13EU jurisprudence influence
- 9:40Software patent grants data
- 11:492015 CRI guidelines impact
- 13:40Flaws in patent examination
- 15:48Granted patent case studies
- 18:58Solutions to patent issues
- 20:06Innovation debate
- 21:52Open source vs proprietary patents
- 23:36Patent enforcement and opposition
- 26:02Impact on FOSS communities
- 27:12Open source licenses
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