The State Street decision is significant for a few reasons. For one thing, Kuester said, it greatly expanded the standards for what can be patented. It wasn't widely accepted in the patent community until this decision. It also could cause headaches for firms whose business models are similar but not exactly the same. Patents for software also took over where copyrights left off, the attorneys said.
Copyrights cover written, graphical, musical, or artistic works.
Whereas a copyright would cover the source code itself for a spreadsheet application, for example, a patent would cover the notion of a spreadsheet application, regardless of similarities or differences in the underlying source code. In the case of software, the author would send in a disk with the code or a certain number of pages of written code. The copyright is valid for 75 years after the author dies. A patent, on the other hand, only lasts for 20 years after the date it is filed. Plus, it costs thousands of dollars and involves a complicated application that often requires the expertise of an attorney.