The part of this series focuses on the two recent judgments of the Delhi High Court passed in the statutory appeals filed by one of the leading technology giants Microsoft in the matters of Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC v. The Assistant Controller of Patents & Designs[i], and Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC v. Assistant Controller of Patents and Designs[ii]. These judgments pertain to statutory appeals against refusal of a grant of patent applications, whereby the Delhi High Court has recommended the Indian Patent Office to adopt a broader strategy in appraising computer-related inventions. Such inventions are to be examined from the standpoint of their technical improvements and their functional significance in addressing concrete issues brought forth by such creations. The judgments provide an opportunity to revisit the concepts embodied under Section 3(k) of the Patents Act, 1970. Brief Facts: 1. Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC v. The Assistant Controller of Patents &…

This article focuses on the Million Dollar question of this century. How to legally protect software from being copied or pirated. In this article, we will be discussing different ways to legally protect software from being pirated/copied. Since are multiple facets to this problem, the first question would be deciding which aspect of the software requires protection. Examples include:          Protecting the basic idea of the software and the problem solved.         Protecting the software code and algorithm.         Protecting the architecture, process/control flow diagrams, higher-level project details, etc.         Protecting the User Interface and graphical elements of the software, etc. This listing is not exhaustive and keeps evolving over time with new developments in the field of software engineering. With new software development models coming into the picture, the strategy for protecting software would naturally undergo further changes. Nevertheless, the…