[Patent Talk] Key Considerations in Securing Application Patents

This column by patent attorney Taeyoung Lee of our firm was published in Etoday on March 15, 2021. It discusses key considerations in securing BM (business method) patents and application patents in Korea.

[Patent Talk] Key Considerations in Securing Application Patents

In patent prosecution practice, patents in the electronics field fall broadly into two categories: device patents and BM patents. A device patent covers an electronic device with a new electronic circuit, algorithm or configuration. A BM patent, on the other hand, originally refers to a patent on a business method, such as a payment method, an analysis or evaluation method, or a sales method, but in a broader sense it includes inventions implemented in software using computers or information and communications technology.

The most famous BM patent is Amazon's 1-Click patent. Amazon obtained a patent on a method of completing an online order with a single click and, in October 1999, filed a patent infringement suit against Barnes & Noble, then the world's largest brick-and-mortar bookseller, attracting great attention. The dispute ended when Amazon dropped the suit in November 2002, but on the strength of this 1-Click patent Amazon grew into the world's largest e-commerce company.

Although BM patents have existed for some 20 years, the number of BM patent applications has risen sharply as the Fourth Industrial Revolution accelerates. The most common among them are application patents. An application (app) is application software created as a computer program to run on a computer or smartphone. Pure application software may be classified as a computer program-related invention, but because most of it is provided as an app or platform service, it overlaps with the concept of BM patents.

In particular, as we move from a contact era to an "untact" (contactless) era and all offline activities are increasingly provided through online platforms or apps, a large share of the patents proposed by new startups are BM patents. However, if a BM patent does not obtain an appropriate scope of rights...

(Please click the link below to read the full column.)

LNB IP Law Firm