First published in The European Lawyer / IT supplement, July
2001
In the past, patents were only considered as appropriate protection for the respective development in high technologies and research. Patents were the exclusive domain of patent departments and patent attorneys and, as such, of engineers and scientists in all fields of technology. Patent laws all over the world were interpreted as allowing access to patent protection only for inventions in technical fields comprising a so-called "technical character". This has changed dramatically. Today, patent protection is also accessible for business methods, at least to a certain extent, in most industrial countries.
When, in 1998, the US Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit laid to rest the so-called business method exception from patentability in its decision State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. Signature Financial Group, Inc. (149 F.3d 1368; Fed. Cir. Jul. 23, 1998), this provoked not only a storm of headlines in major
