Can a computer program be protected by patent law?

A patent is an industrial property right designed to confer legal protection on an invention, i.e. the resolution of a technical problem by technical means. In this respect, the formal expression of a computer program, the source code, is not patentable. In other words, a patent will never cover a series of instructions expressed in programming language. This is the role of copyright.

As a matter of principle, a computer program as such is not considered to be an invention, and is therefore excluded from the scope of patentability (pursuant to Articles L. 611-10 of Code de la propriété intellectuelle and 52 of CBE...