Amended Patent Examination Guidelines for computer-related inventions – a claim for the “computer program” per se is allowed.

The Korean Intellectual Property Office (“KIPO”) amended its Patent Examination Guidelines (“Guidelines”) for computer-related inventions to allow that a “computer program” per se can be claimed as a statutory subject matter and one of the allowable categories.  Even though only a claim in the form of “a computer readable medium carrying the computer program” was allowed before, according to the amended Guidelines, a computer program per se can be claimed as an invention. 

For example, a claim in the form of “a computer program implemented with hardware, stored in a computer-readable medium, and configured to execute process A, process B and process C…” is allowable under the amended Guidelines.  In addition to the term “a computer program,” other equivalent terms, including but not limited to “an application,” can also be allowed as a claim.  It is noted that only a claim in the form of ‘a computer program stored in a computer-readable medium’ is allowable under the amended Guidelines and a claim for the computer program without such limitations would not be allowed.

These newly amended Guidelines are applicable to the patent applications filed on or after July 1, 2014 (as for the PCT applications, applications having international filing dates on or after July 1, 2014).  In other words, a claim for the computer program per se is not allowed for the patent applications filed before June 30, 2014.