http://www.thehindu.com/2004/12/08/stories/2004120805770100.htm
Amendment to Patents Act this month
And now a small explanation on why if your job is developing software, you should be worried. Firstly have a look at this article to see why software patents are bad http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/against-software-patents.html
The World Trade Organisation's TRIPS Agreement includes a requirement that:
"(...) patents shall be available for any inventions, whether products or processes, in all fields of technology, provided they are new, involve an inventive step and are capable of industrial application" (Art. 27(1)).
Though it does not mention software patents explicitly, the only avenue open for completely avoiding a requirement that algorithms be patentable is to define them as not being "inventions" (eg Art 1(2) UK Patents Act (http://www.jenkins-ip.com/patlaw/pa77.htm#s1))
This means that unless India explicitly declares software patents as not-applicable, WIPO can force it down India's throat.
More information can be had from
Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIPs
Software patents under TRIPs Agreement - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_TRIPs_Agreement
-- ,-.___,-. Raj Shekhar \_/_ _\_/ System Administrator, programmer and slacker )O_O( home : http://rajshekhar.net { (_) } blog : http://rajshekhar.net/blog/ `-^-' work : http://netphotograph.com
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