UK patent law requires rethink

The UK patent regime needs updating to reflect changes to the UK economy. Only then will it allow the country’s economy to fully capitalise on its knowledge advantage and compete on a level playing field with the rest of the world.

While the day-to-day running of the UK patent system is well managed by the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO), there are fundamental flaws at the heart of current patent law that need to be addressed. These flaws date back over 30 years, since the introduction of the Patent Act 1977, which marked the start of a new harmonised European patent regime.

Despite the good intentions, true harmonisation has not proved easy to achieve and in recent years a divergence has arisen between the UK and Europe. The differences lie in the interpretation of a set of statutory ‘exceptions’, which prevent some specific types of invention from obtaining patent protection. These exceptions affect ‘mathematical methods’, ‘methods of doing business’, ‘computer programs’, ‘aesthetic creations’ and ‘presentations of information’.