Patent Law Practice Center

Article Of Manufacture Claims for Software Inventions: Should They Be Included in Your Patent?

Burt Magen, partner at Vierra Magen Marcus & Deniro LLP and Practice Center Contributor passed along this article he wrote entitled Article of Manufacture Claims for Computer Related Inventions.  According to Magen, article of manufacture claims can offer advantages over apparatus and process claims, including providing an easier mechanism for enforcement of the patent.  With the knowledge provided in his article, Magen says, “patent practitioners can efficiently draft appropriate article of manufacture claims to more effectively protect software inventions.”  Here is the Introduction:

The software industry is growing and becoming more important to the global economy.  As a result, the number of software patent applications has increased dramatically.  To maximize the value of software patents, it is important that the claims of such patents properly protect the invention.  Typically, software patents include apparatus claims, method claims, and/or article of manufacture claims.  Because of the nature of the software industry, for some inventions the article of manufacture claims may be the most important class of claims.  Yet, many software patents do not include article of manufacture claims or include an incomplete set of article of manufacture claims as an afterthought. (more…)