Idiosyncrasies of the Software Development Process and Their Relation to Software Patents: Theoretical Considerations and Empirical Evidence

In Europe, the future patenting of software-related inventions has been the subject of intensive discussions for some time, since there exists a strong dispute between the supporters of the U.S. practice of allowing patents in order to increase Europe's competitiveness and the opponents postulating negative impacts of patents on the software development process. This paper presents empirical results about the idiosyncrasies of the software development process and tests hypotheses on their impact on the likelihood of patents being obstacles for software dvelopment. The paper concludes with the identification of determinants for preferences concerning different possible patent regimes in the future.