Navigating the Patent Maze: Challenges and Controversies in Emerging Technologies
Challenges and Controversies
- Ambiguities in patenting software-related innovations
- Technological challenges: state of prior art and non-obviousness in virtual reality
- Ethical and societal impacts of patenting metaverse technologies
The ethical and social implications of patenting metaverse technologies include data security, privacy, interoperability, monopolistic conduct, and access and innovation. Patent protection may limit access to new ideas and technology and, therefore, raise concerns about disparities in access and stifle the growth of the metaverse as a shared online space. Suppressing competition and stifling innovation within the metaverse is the means through which large firms that patent metaverse technologies create monopolies that restrain the growth of the metaverse.
A core ethical concern behind patenting Metaverse technology is that it would likely result in monopolies of patents, thereby potentially curtailing growth in open, inclusive platforms and even a type of digital divide by excluding the individual who cannot license or purchase patented ideas.
This would make it socially responsible to introduce technological break-throughs into services for the benefit of society, protecting intellectual property on one hand but allowing different voices that will shape the metaverse on the other, stipulating guidelines on data ownership and requiring consent by users.
Monopolies raise ethical issues because a few organizations command a disproportionate amount of market power that may stifle competition and inhibit innovation. Ethical dimensions of patenting critical Metaverse innovations should be watchful and counter any anti-competitive practice that might arise.
Impact on culture and society is particularly important because it can fill the Metaverse with cultural contents, requiring moral patenting procedures that respect many cultural identities. The other ethical concern is considering how such developments might shape social interactions, behaviors, and identifications in virtual environments.
This also included partial access to education and research. Such knowledge commons can be based on, with respect to the value of education and research institutions in such a way that can be used freely, along with contributing towards developing the Metaverse technology. Some ethical issues would also rise, including environmental impact by using the resources responsibly as well as lowering it.
There also needs to be cooperation across countries, especially on the scale of international conduct. Responsible growth of the Metaverse does indeed allow for global innovation and fairness in having access to technology.
- LEGAL DISPUTES AND COURT DECISIONS ON METAVERSE, VIRTUAL REALITY, AND SOFTWARE PATENTS IN INDIA
It sought to bring software patents to India through Patent Amendment Act 2005. Under Clause 3(k) of Patent Amendment Act 2005, the amendment carried out was, “a computer programme per se other than its technical application to industry or a combination with hardware; a mathematical method or a business method or algorithms.” But this proposal got rejected in the Indian Parliament, and it was decided that Clause 3(k) remains just the way it is. It was in an attempt that the ordinance tried to provide a balance between the factors in favour and against granting software patents. However it was not possible as all the recommendations of the ordinance were reversed, and the law was not converted into a legislation. Many courts tried to determine whether a software invention is abstract by devising several tests to determine whether any invention related to computers might be patentable. So far, there remains no valid test, set of rules, body of practice, or body of decisions that could determine patent eligibility.
An invention shall be considered inventive if, considered with the aid of the state of art and for the man of ordinary skill in the art, it would involve a step that has inventive activity, or if otherwise economic value is attributed to the invention, or both. In the instant case the term “inventive step” was stretched over the economic value of the inventive. The inventive step would be thought of with the question “Would a non-inventive mind have thought of the alleged invention?”. Negative response to it means the invention is obvious. Previously published in a relevant field of technology shall constitute prior art for the purpose of determining inventive steps. In Bishwanath Prasad Radhey Shyam v. Hindustan Metal Industries, the Indian Supreme Court has discussed the novelty step and obviousness of the invention.
The Court determined that an underlying principle of patent law was that only if it had been novel and useful could an invention be issued and would thereby necessarily both be unique and useful. A patent’s validity will depend only on the original discovery by the inventor, rather than on the confirmation of prior knowledge that existed at the time when the patent was issued. The question of “inventive steps” has therefore to be decided essentially on a case-to-case basis as it involves questions of law and fact. The Intellectual Property Appellate Board of India canceled the issued patents in the case M/s Aditi Manufacturing Co. v. M/S. Bharat Bhogilal Patel (2012), citing lack of creative step and in fact, all of these claims and specifications rested on previously published discoveries.
It said that none of the features stated to be new in this invention is novel; all the features were there in earlier arts. It is neither novel nor creative effort since the invention was known even earlier.
In Enercon India Limited, Daman v Aloys Wobben Germany, the Intellectual Property Appellate Board had to deal with an invention containing instructions to control automatic control units that change a wind turbine according to exogenous environmental conditions Much like in PCs.
As per the board, this invention cannot be considered undesirable under patentability perspectives because it cannot be seen as a computer program or as a set of procedural rules such as algorithms in and of itself. Comparison
Comparison of Indian Patent Law with International Standards
Legal System in India
Innovation:
Section 2(1)(l) states that under the Indian Patents Act of 1970, one of the absolute requirements for patentability is novelty.
Under this clause of the Act, it considers an invention to be new if the originator has not published or even used it anywhere in India or even anywhere in the world at the time of the application for a patent.
In the case of Metaverse, Virtual Reality, and Software Innovations, it may be challenging to decide boundaries of previous work in rapidly building domains like virtual reality and the metaverse. Here, the patent examiners have to decide whether the claimed innovation is indeed novel under the light of technology and disclosures developed previously.
Innovation Step (Not Apparent):
Section 2(1)(ja) of the Indian Patents Act defines an innovative step. An inventive step is found if the invention does not appear to a person skilled in the relevant technical field to which it relates as obvious.
Under the Act, a person aware of that specific industry or business need not necessarily identify the novelty so easily.
About Metaverse, Virtual Reality and Software Innovations, compared to the existing knowledge in the relevant area of expertise, the question is whether the invention claimed contains a nonobvious technical advance. At the time of patent examination, that is often somewhat subjective judgment which may require opinions from experts.
Author: Ishika Soni, in case of any queries please contact/write back to us at support@ipandlegalfilings.com or IP & Legal Filing
References
- “Intellectual Property in the Digital Age: Challenges for Asia” by Christopher Heath and Kung-Chung Liu.
- “The Metaverse Handbook: Innovating for the Internet’s Next Tectonic Shift” by QuHarrison Terry and Scott Keeney.
- Articles from The Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (Oxford University Press).
