When considering cloud computing and intellectual property, it’s not enough just to look at copyright, the most powerful means of protecting an invention is a patent. Copyright can only catch another company who copies your code, but a patent can stop anyone who infringes your patent claims. However, obtaining a patent within the software arena – and therefore the cloud computing environment – comes with a number of challenges.
Cloud computing is a grey area when it comes to what can and can’t be patented. The primary challenge, and one for the whole of the software industry, is that software per se can’t actually be patented in Europe.
