On March 25, the Patent Office published the Draft Guidelines for the Examination of Computer-Related Inventions (CRI), 2025, inviting stakeholders and the public to submit comments and suggestions by April 15, 2025.
Basically, this manual serves as a guide for patent examiners in determining whether a patent should be granted for CRI. The primary objective of the revised manual is to clarify Section 3(k) of the Patent Act, which pertains to patents related to CRIs. Indian courts have been granting patents to software when there is a âtechnical effectâ or a âtechnical contribution.â The draft guideline includes recent case law which extensively interpreted Section 3(k) and its exclusions.
This is particularly significant for us since the earlier versions appeared to open a backdoor to software patenting and various other organisations have raised the comments as well. Further, we also have been submitting our comments explain our stance on software patents to various forums and institutions.
On a quick glance, I could see that the definition clause for âsoftwareâ is incorporated from dictionary meaning rather than a definition established by Courts or some authoritative source. Further, the definitions of âsoftwareâ and âcomputer programâ remain identical, as similar to earlier versions. We can suggest removing the definition coming from Copyright to prevent confusion and broadening the scope by examiner while granting patents.
Looking forward for members to contribute to this by adding comments or any views.