Reforming Software Claiming

Shubha Ghosh

This is Professor Ghosh’s reply to Mark A. Lemley’s article, Software Patents and the Return of Functional Claiming, 2013 Wis. L. Rev. 905.

The subject of Professor Lemley’s article, software patents, is timely and of social relevance. Software is everywhere, serving as tools to control and direct the flow of information and as modern-day gears and pulleys to operate everyday consumer products. As a critical input to many aspects of our contemporary life, the ability of a company to exclude others from software raises questions about the competitiveness and innovativeness of many industries. Since the 1960s, software patents have been a source of suspicion among those who want to keep software out of the clutches of big business.

Professor Shubha Ghosh is the Vilas Research Fellow & Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

Volume 2013, No. 4

Articles Software Patents and the Return of Functional Claiming By Mark A. Lemley Commentators have observed for years that patents do less good and cause more harm in the software industry than in other industries …