A software patent has been defined by the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) as being a "patent on any performance of a computer realised by means of a computer program". The FFII and other campaign groups argue that such patents should not be granted.
Most countries place some limits on the patenting of invention involving software, but there is no legal definition of a software patent. For example, U.S. patent law excludes "abstract ideas", and this has been used to refuse some patents involving software. In Europe, "computer programs as such" are excluded from pa...