Software patents under TRIPs Agreement

The WTO's Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), particularly Article 27, is occasionally referenced in the political debate on the international legal framework for the patentability of software, and on whether software and computer-implemented inventions should be considered as a field of technology.

Article 27 paragraph 1 of TRIPS provides for that:

(...) patents shall be available for any inventions, whether products or processes, in all fields of technology, provided that they are new, involve an inventive step and are capable of industrial application. (...) patents shall be available and patent rights enjoyable without discrimination as to the place of invention, the field of technology and whether products are imported or locally produced.

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