The Government intends to take this matter up with its partners in the European Union and the European Patent Convention as a matter of urgency. Ways of Doing Business 21. There was a good deal more agreement among respondents about business methods. Virtually all opposed patents for business methods where no computer is involved. The great majority also opposed patents for computer-implemented business methods if there is no technological innovation.
Business methods are of course as old as business itself.
The advantages of stealing a march on competitors, albeit temporarily, are incentive enough to seek to develop them. Moreover the nature of business methods can lead to very wide patents a patent for a particular sales method can affect all the sectors in which that sales method might be useful. Most respondents did not feel that new technologies, above all the internet, have changed this argument. A minority of the organisations disagreed. Patents ie monopolies could reduce innovation and consumer choice.