The Patents Act 11/1986 states that computer programs cannot be protected as such, since they are not inventions with an industrial application, that is, an appliance, mechanism, instrument, product, etc. that is produced in an industry.
Computer programs are excluded from protection by patent law because they are not considered to be inventions in the sense required by law: an invention must constitute a solution to a technical problem.This means that the source code, the target code or any other form of expression of a computer program is excluded from patentability, with author's rights being the established channel for protecting computer programs.
However, the technical effects derived from executing a program, to the extent that they constitute the means of solving a technical problem, are eligible for patent protection. This means that a method for compressing an audio or video file so that its transmission bandwidth is reduced by a factor of ten could be eligible for patent protection, or a method for detecting errors produced during the transmission of digital information or a method for improving the quality of images which are altered through the introduction of high frequency noise during their transmission.
If an applicant wishes to register a computer-implemented invention, it is not sufficient merely to say that the program is innovative, the patent application must clearly state which technical problem is being addressed and the proposed solution to overcome this problem.Protection cannot be sought in any case for the program code, but rather for the technical effects generated as a result of executing the program, in other words, the effects that enable the technical problem to be resolved.
This invention will also have to meet the stipulated requirements for novelty and inventive step, that is, that an expert in the field in question in each case can arrive at the same result for which protection is sought in an obvious manner.
