The decision of the Canadian Federal Court of Appeal in Amazon.com Inc. v. Canada provides the latest word on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions and business method patents in Canada. The recent development of Canadian law has paralleled that of the United States in cases such as Bilski v. Kappos and Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., and the law in both countries may now be quite similar. The only statutory exemption from patentability in Canada is now in respect to “mere scientific principles or abstract theorems.”
In the United States a similar prohibition with regard to “laws of nature, physical phenomena, and abstract ideas” has developed. The courts in both countries must assess whether the claimed invention avoids these specific prohibitions.
Arguably, both the Supreme Court in Prometheus and the Canadian Federal Court of Appeal in Amazon placed important caveats with respect to the breadth of patentability. The Supreme Court appeared to endorse an analysis that focused on the “new” elements of a claimed invention. Similarly, the Court of Appeal in Amazon suggested that known computer hardware may not be sufficient to provide the “practical application” required for patentability of a novel algorithm.
The impact of these decisions will only be known once the respective patent offices establish their practices and further case law is developed. The patent offices of both jurisdictions are currently working on final guidance documents to assist patent examiners.