The high complexity of software products, as well as the increased number of intellectual property rights in the field, has created a dense thicket of overlapping patent claims that companies must navigate in order to operate in the sector. The lack of relevant prior art and the abstract nature of the software patent claims are the major causes of overlapping patents in the field. However, efforts have thus far been concentrated merely in improving the prior art repositories. The abstract nature of the patent claims and the disclosure concerns deriving from that have, however, not yet received sufficient attention. This article pursues this subject, first by investigating the reasons for, and consequences of, overlapping IP rights in software-related patents. This analysis suggests that overlapping problems and, thus, the software patent thicket, cannot be effectively reduced unless issues related to abstraction and disclosure are addressed. On the basis of this, a more detailed description of the programme – including flowcharts, pseudocodes and, when necessary, parts of the source code – might be an essential requirement to be added to the description of the invention in natural language.
