Research On Business Method Patent Protection

As the development of the computer software and internet technology, e-commerce has influenced all the aspects of our lives. And the problem of business method patent (BMP) now is in a hot discussion. Whether business method has the necessity to be protected by being granted a patent right is a problem that should be solved urgently. After the United States opened the door for the BMP, more and more people in the business field just changed the traditional methods of doing business into forms of software that could be applied in the internet and thus were protected by Patent Law. Because many methods like this lack novelty, it indeed lowered down the standards of patent scrutinization and resulted in the overflow of the patents. We should draw lessons from the United States'improper choice of its patent institutions. And we should also think deeply on the design of our own patent institutions on this problem.This article mainly adopted the method of the comparison research, investigated the developed country's experience of law-making and judicatories on this problem, and consulted some English articles. On the other hand, being integrated with Chinese resent law, it tried to design patent institutions on BMP problem that match resent situation of our own country. In the first part of this article, this article analyzed the business method patent and other related concept first, and uncovered the mystery veil of the business method patent, gave people an outline comprehension. Then it compared the advantages and disadvantages of different ways of protection and finally made a conclusion that BMP has the necessity of patent protection. The second part of this article began with the business method exception principle on the patent law, stated the developing process of business method patent in USA. At the same time, this part make a conclusion on the fatal influence of USA's ample patent scrunization standards.The third part analyzed the eligible condition of patent first, pointing out the business method that contains technique project is the proper object of the patent. The writer drew lessons from the law-making and judicial affairs experiences of developed countries, and summarized a more strict standard that our country should adopt in the investigation of patent applicants.The writer made a research on recent Chinese patent law concerned in this field in the last part and generate some proper measures dealt with this problem.