Patents are expected to become a much more significant issue in the course of the decade. In the US significant numbers of patents which effectively cover e-commerce business processes have been issued and very large numbers of applications have been made. US practitioners are expressing concerns that patents may have been granted in the US which do not meet the usual standards of novelty and non-obviousness. We expect, with some time lag, a similar trend in Europe. We have, in Europe, prohibitions on patents for software and business methods.
Work is under way towards removing the exclusion of patentability for software.
The domain name system used by the Internet has lead to conflicts between trademark owners. Trade marks are registered for defined territories and defined products or services. This has meant that concurrent users of the same trademark have been able to coexist for different products or geography. However, in spite of the difficulties, many of the domain name registries have developed or are developing reasonably effective dispute resolution procedures and many national courts have risen to the challenge. The following paragraphs provide an outline of the key areas of concern.