José Ramon Cardeno-Shaadi

The motivation for writing this commentary, comes from the general misconception, that computer programs (also known as software) are not protected in the European Union (EU) and its Member countries, by the Law of Patents. Such mistaken belief is based on the ground that Article 52 (2) of the European Patent Convention (EPC) excludes computer programs “as such” to be a patentable subject matter.

1. The Information Era

Nowadays, a new revolutionary age is on course. The world is shrinking, and humanity is experiencing globalized changes, in similar ways, like the ones that in the XV Centur y were caused by the development of printing press by Gutenberg, or in the XIX Century by industrial machinery.