Re:How about (Score 1)

Agreed about EU. Same for Russia - business methods that do not qualify for patent protection may qualify for protection under trade secret or unfair competition law - outside US, for instance, in Russia. According to Russian Patents blog ( http://russianpatentsblog.patentsfromru.com/ ), no specific provision of Russian patent law prohibits the patenting of business methods as a general rule, but Article 4, paragraph 3 of the Russian Patent Law does prohibit the patenting of (1) business administration and management methods, (2) programs for computer and algorithms, and (3) intellectual operations performance methods. Though (2) would seem to bar patents on any software-based methods, the Russian Patent Office has interpreted the statement in an increasingly liberal fashion. Given a dearth of litigation in the area of business method patents, however, and specifically in the area of Internet-based BMPs, it is unclear exactly how these provisions are to be interpreted.