{"id":21883,"date":"2013-08-29T09:27:57","date_gmt":"2013-08-29T14:27:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=21883"},"modified":"2013-08-29T09:27:57","modified_gmt":"2013-08-29T14:27:57","slug":"new-zealand-bans-most-software-patents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2013\/08\/29\/new-zealand-bans-most-software-patents\/","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand bans (most) software patents"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/2013\/08\/in-historic-vote-new-zealand-bans-software-patents\/\" target=\"_blank\">Hurrah for New Zealand<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A major new patent bill, passed in a 117-4 vote by New Zealand&#8217;s Parliament after five years of debate, has banned software patents.<\/p>\n<p>The relevant clause of the patent bill actually states that a computer program is &#8220;not an invention.&#8221; Some have suggested that was a way to get around the wording of the TRIPS intellectual property treaty, which requires patents to be &#8220;available for any inventions, whether products or processes, in all fields of technology.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Processes will still be patentable if the computer program is merely a way of implementing a patentable process. But patent claims that cover computer programs &#8220;as such&#8221; will not be allowed.<\/p>\n<p>It seems there will be some leeway for computer programs directly tied to improved hardware. The bill includes the example of a better washing machine. Even if the improvements are implemented with a computer program, &#8220;the actual contribution is a new and improved way of operating a washing machine that gets clothes cleaner and uses less electricity,&#8221; so a patent could be awarded.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hurrah for New Zealand: A major new patent bill, passed in a 117-4 vote by New Zealand&#8217;s Parliament after five years of debate, has banned software patents. The relevant clause of the patent bill actually states that a computer program is &#8220;not an invention.&#8221; Some have suggested that was a way to get around the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,15],"tags":[241,301,380,92],"class_list":["post-21883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-law","category-technology","tag-intellectualproperty","tag-newzealand","tag-patents","tag-software"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-5GX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21883"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21884,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21883\/revisions\/21884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}