Utilization of shared services is becoming increasingly tied to corporate strategy, and centers are handling more work than ever before.

by Peggy Cope

Shared services have been doing a very good job for a lot of companies. And you know what happens when you do work well? You get more of it.

“What’s happening in shared services, once people get past digging their heels in, they get embedded control, handle more data than before, and consolidate and improve processes. They have a whole lot more capability as far as providing useful data and information than they ever had in the past,” said Penny Weller, senior business advisor at The Hackett Group .

Weller’s in a position to know. She worked in decision support in shared services at Pfizer, and when she started pushing the shared-services model 12 years ago, the resistance was fierce. As every business unit fought for its own people and systems, it was nearly impossible to pull them apart. According to Weller, the time hadn’t come yet for Pfizer, although now the pharmaceutical giant’s executives defend the possibilities of shared services’ benefits.

Once HR executives get past internal complaints and see the true value of not having all that business “stuff” to deal with, the C-suite sees the light and even realizes the benefits of having better data and processes. Said Weller, “It’s a struggle, but they are seeing the true value.”

Hackett’s current research demonstrates that shared services are among the foundational tools used by organizations to drive performance. By utilizing shared services, 65 percent of world-class firms (those in the top quartile for performance) save 20 percent or more, and nearly a third achieve savings upwards of 41 percent. In addition, in a rolling, three-year set of benchmarks contained in the “Hackett 2006 Enterprise Book of Numbers,” Hackett followed the results of 125 companies. Using efficiency and effectiveness metrics, world-class employers’ results were matched against peer companies. What Hackett found should serve as a wake-up call to organizations that have failed to act on shared services, as their competitors are leveraging not just shared services but also low-cost, offshore services. According to the research, more than 60 percent of all companies with HR shared services have achieved cost reductions of 21 to 80 percent; internal client satisfaction has improved along similar lines; world-class companies spend $1,614 per employee on HR, compared with $1,864 for the typical company; and world-class organizations employ 11.5 FTEs per 1,000 employees, compared with 13.5 FTEs for the average.

Down the road, shared services are expected to take an even larger role. And the roles they are playing go well beyond the transactional.

According to Michael Steer, managing consultant at PA Consulting , “It’s not just about getting a cheaper cost; executives are saying, ‘I want to know what goes into that cost.’ Transaction pricing isn’t the way to go any more.” The fact that work is being done by a third party doesn’t mean a company should be satisfied with merely knowing what it is being charged. “You don’t really know what you are paying for,” said Steer.

The ‘Steppng Stone’ Effect
In Europe, said Steer, most organizations that have started down the route of whether to outsource or pursue a captive model have tended to take a shared-services captive route, although it tends to be as a stepping stone as shared services mature. “We did a survey in 2006-07 that showed buyers saying, ‘We are happy, we have set up shared-services centers, and we are meeting or exceeding expectations.’ But then they say they will look to move some of those toward a hybrid model in the future to generate savings.”

Once a company has its own shared-services center, it has a choice of hybridization, where it will start to outsource some of the processes. The goal is to optimize the shared-services center, exploit the investment that’s been made, and consider things such as whether it can offer more services. They ask: Is there a different mix that can be achieved? Can some of what was handled by the shared-services center be given to third-party provider?

“There has been a huge knee-jerk reaction to the availability of labor arbitrage in moving to lower cost locations,” Steer noted. “Everyone rushed off to set up shared-services centers in India or the Philippines or wherever, depending on the organization’s language requirements.”

In Europe, given the language differences and varying cultures, more challenges face organziations creating shared-services centers to serve all those markets. However, said Steer, the industry is beginning to see more acceptance of outsourcing per se within Europe over the past couple of years.

“It used to be American corporations that had outsourced, but now European corporations are doing it and considering it. They are not being told to do it by HQ—they are going down that route by themselves.”

In part, this is the result of increased comfort with the concept: Companies have seen others do it, so it seems less risky. Much of Europe went captive simply because of a perceived lack of safety in the outsourced model. The “global village” bears some responsibility for newer mindsets.

Said Steer, “If your competitior happens to be American and has reduced his costs, dropped straight through to the bottom line, you are losing competitive advantage. If others are doing it, how do you keep up with them? You see less now of a pure wage arbitrage as motivation.” The question now for most organizations is whether they have the right individuals and skills in-house, and if not, should they reach out to a specialist or expert?

A global credit crunch also sways the decision-making. Steer wouldn’t be surprised to see another wave of oragnizations say they want to get costs out of their business and asking how to do that quickly without risking the business. Despite a growing acceptance of giving some processes to trusted outsourcing giants, there are still emotional barriers, as well as a rationale that says certain functions should be retained in-house.

The global war for talent is also affecting captive shared services. “It’s all very exciting while it’s being created and set up, but once it’s there and it’s stable and running, it becomes very rote—as it should do—like a machine, and it challenges the organization to keep top talent,” said Steer. “Individuals will tend to move on, because they like change, they like dealing with new things.”

He confirmed that there is movement toward shared services doing higher-level functions, much in the same way that third-party outsourcing has climbed up the value chain. Indeed, many of the big names in outsourcing have a heritage around SSCs and captives operating in the same space. “If you are going captive, this is what you need to do,” said Steer. “You have to move up the value chain.” Some of it is still transactional stuff, but more of it is becoming the “sexy” strategic type of stuff.

As outsourcing and shared services tread parallel paths, said Steer, there is less differentiation between them, especially with a hybrid model, which is emerging.

One area of potential evolution is particularly intriguing to Steer: co-opetition among client organizations. “Why do organizations continue to grow their own SSCs when they can have a SSC that services the whole industry?” he asked. On the financial side, every bank had its own check-clearing facility, but that’s gone to third-party providers. He predicts there will be a move toward alliances in that space, with companies crossing boundaries and asking why every company has its own SSC when it can share a single center.

Of course, in a compliance-centric era, this raises the issue of trust, especially around data security. Steer, however, believes all that can be handled by segmenting what each company is willing to share and retaining control over key customers and suppliers that will never go into a shared-services center.

In the future, the use of shared services is only expected to grow. Hackett research reports that centers that employ more than 1,000 people are forecast to double in size. And medium-sized centers will expand to become large ones. In addition, the talent in the average SSC for world-class companies gets paid more and tends to have more certifications than employees of peer companies. Weller commented that at Pfizer, when she brought in people who had degrees in their areas of expertise, people thought she was “nuts.” Those days are waning fast.

Moving Forward
Michel de Zeeuw, former senior vice president of global finance shared services at Royal Philips Electronics, made the transition last year to vice president of Infosys BPO, under a seven-year, $250 million deal that transferred three offshore services centers, 1,400 full-time employees, and multiple business functions to the Indian provider—ushered in by a one-time payment of $28 million. De Zeeuw will be the Philips account executive at Infosys for the foreseeable future, as his role and that of the Philips’ service centers take shape and imprint a new, global Infosys on the world BPO market.

Predictably, the initial driver for creating the offshore captive model was cost—but the objective was to generate savings through labor arbitrage, as well as generate productivity and service improvements in the long run. Initially, Philips created a captive model rather than outsource because it believed it could provide what it needed on its own. De Zeeuw cited three reasons:

“First, we had the know-how, generally, with people who had done it earlier; second, we had a presence offshore in these countries where we went to support us in the process; and third, we had the scale to generate enough savings. We could do it ourselves, and we thought creating a captive setup would help take full advantage of cost reductions and reduce the risk of moving to outsourcing directly.”

However, the company always knew it would eventually turn to outsourcing, and after three-and-a-half years, it recognized that outsourcing would help it reach the next level for a shared-services organization and meet strategic objectives.

The key benefits Philips sought were to grow more offshore, transfer more work, and create more value. The deal facilitated these goals because Infosys offered more services than Philips had, in terms of scope, as well as the ability to shift work around because of its size. In turn, Infosys gained substantial scale and a global footprint as a result of the contract, offering a true symbiosis under which both organizations could grow while minimizing risk.

Under its captive model, Philips recognized that at some point a company that has reduced costs also improves processes and productivity, thereby reducing its scale so costs aren’t optimized any more. Turning to an outsourcer that had a bigger focus on technology and greater ability to improve on that side helped it continue to reduce costs.

For Philips, the gradual transition showed that the captive shared-services model still has an important role to play—one that serves European organizations well.

When it comes to HRO, don’t try to change the personality of your partner after engagement. It’s better to state your intention and desires upfront.

by Paul Davies

s there such a thing as a marriage made in heaven when it comes to HRO—the perfect match, or soul mate—for every buyer seeking outsourcing nirvana? And, if so, how does one find the right partner?

It’s a poor analogy and fraught with the problem of overlooking what really counts. Providers do have diverse corporate styles that might fit one buyer better than another, but beneath the surface each one is a highly motivated, profit-making enterprise. So, the choice is essentially not unlike other sourcing adventures. Once beyond the universal bidder selection standards, like solvency, the first hurdle is product.

However, what makes HRO different from run-of-the-mill widget specifications is the likelihood that each provider will offer its own vision of the solution, and this leads to matchmaking. Because while the buyer usually gets to tick the widget specification and move on, HRO starts with comparing the merits of materially different proposals. The desire to go with a particular compensation software can be confounded by another provider offering a better geographic footprint and yet another having a service center within spitting distance of one of the buyer’s affected facilities, holding out hope of redeployment of workers.

One of the dangers is that the buyer team never gets out of matchmaking mode, perpetually swooning over one or another of the providers’ solutions. Or, it can, of course, lead to undue weight being given to one bidder throughout the rest of the sourcing process solely based on particular aspects of its solution.
Buyers often try to level the playing field by asking bidders to incorporate parts of other solutions. It’s a bit unethical but commonplace, and providers are content to play along, especially when the better-prepared buyers point out their intention to do so from the beginning.

However, solution designing off the back of the sourcing process is risky. It tempts providers to introduce things to their proposal they might not be good at and opens the door for a specification inadvertently weighted toward one bidder. Additionally, it’s worth remembering that there will be a degree of “wish” in each proposal. And it’s detrimental when such imagination finds its way into the all-new, hybrid solution.

It’s best to get the solution design out of the way before sourcing begins. This can be done in workshops with providers so long as the purpose is made clear or done with advisors. And as much of the design as possible should be left flexible. On this basis, different proposals that meet broad, essential criteria can be accepted. The matchmaking will continue because members of the buying team won’t be able to help favor one solution aspect or another, but the disparity will hopefully have been quarantined.

An alternative approach often used is for buyers to give weight to several aspects of the product specification with the purpose of identifying the most desirable solution. It is an intuitive recourse for picking between suitors, but it reduces the competitiveness of the sourcing process early on and, in too many cases, can be based on hypotheses or projections that are not practical. Also, of course, weighting is notoriously manipulative.

All in all, the plenitude of scoring methods are probably best left last to finally choose between bidders based on a sweep of criteria that covers the whole sourcing remit.

Buying HRO is just as hard-nosed as any purchasing effort. In the first instance, it is about asking whether the product meets the specification. Then one might move on to assessing delivery ability by focusing on past quality results, infrastructure, staffing levels, service center turnover, etc. If the product is acceptable and the provider is capable of delivering, the focus can narrow to cost.

Obviously, as any purchasing guru or sourcing advisor will point out, it’s heaps more complicated than this. And, of course, there will be any number of items that must be factored in, many of which will be about fit or even corporate “chemistry.” However, the point of this ramble is a plea to stick to, at the core, logical process and analytical rigor.

Trust that it will deliver, and don’t get sidetracked to lesser fancies more suited to matchmaking agencies.

The parent of HRO Europe and SharedXpertise merge to form a new global firm offering more options for the HRO marketplace.

by Elliot Clark, Jay Whitehead, & Richard Crespin

It was a year ago that Crossing Media, LLC acquired HRO Europe magazine. During this year, we have worked to improve the quality of the content provided to our readers and upgrade our web sites. We recognize that there is still much room for improvement, and we continue to stand ready to face that challenge.
Crossing Media, LLC has been, however, a company based in the U.S., and we believe that the magazine can benefit from more input from European HRO practitioners and leaders in the development of content. We have delayed this first issue of 2008 to make an important announcement about a bold step we have taken to address these opportunities to become a better service to our loyal customers and readers.

As we celebrate our cover story on the emergence of the HRO Buyers Group and the HR Outsourcing Association (HROA) and the successful partnership of Accenture’s John Hindle and Unilever’s Guy-Joel de Lhoneux to manage the European chapter (see this issue’s cover story on p. 24), Crossing Media/HRO Europe has a partnership announcement of its own. We have merged with SharedXpertise.

SharedXpertise is the provider of association and event management services to the HROA globally. It also manages other associations in the areas of finance transformation and provides market research on the BPO markets.

Originally founded as the SBPOA in Europe, SharedXpertise Forums will be a brand managed by Crossing Media, LLC, with European headquarters in a new building located in Diegem. A reinvigorated staff—some you know and some who are new to you—will be involved in member services, editorial, and conference management. The Diegem staff will work closely with Crossing Media staff around the world to put out the best media and membership products possible. Globally, Crossing Media will continue to focus on the three “Cs” of the rapidly evolving B2B trade media industry: Content (in print and online), Conferences (e.g., HRO World Europe, CRO Conferences, Finance Transformation, and FAO Summits) and Community (membership associations such as the HROA, Finance Forum and CRO).

What does this mean for members of the HROA and readers of HRO Europe? The simple answer is more choices and better content. Many membership associations have companion magazines, and this creates more synergy between the publication and the HR Outsourcing Association, creating better coverage of the European market, its trends, and the people advancing HRO in Europe.

In addition, we offer a broad array of integrated print and online products that will coordinate more effectively with the association’s many educational programs. We can also offer members better access to magazine content. This will allow Crossing Media to shift some of the publishing functions to Europe and gain the valuable local insight that will improve the quality of our editorial product by having a better perspective of the European marketplace.
We are planning an organizational transformation of our own as we determine the best solutions for the members, and we will add resources and program options to create more value and generate more enthusiasm for outsourcing in the European HR community.

This is an exciting time for us, and we want to share our optimism for the future and ask for your support as we build on our strong foundation. You will soon see a better platform for association management, education, and communication with the industry. We also encourage your input in helping us build a more useful and meaningful organization serving the industry.

Few true, global deals exist, but then again, who’s to say which ones qualify?

by Andy Teng

As a global provider of ITO services, CSC strongly believes in practicing what it preaches. Since 2001, the company has leveraged external recruitment services in Europe, establishing itself as a pioneering buyer of recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) at a time when the acronym was barely a concept in the HRO market.

Six years later, with interest in RPO heating up among HR organizations in North America, Europe, and Asia, CSC continues to blaze a trail in the market, this time establishing itself as a pioneer in the global RPO segment after expanding its engagement with provider Alexander Mann Solutions (AMS) to eight countries. Among a new breed of HR organizations engaging in multinational recruitment outsourcing, CSC is slowly but continuously rolling out RPO in a number of markets.

“It’s a combination of improving cost effectiveness, but equally, you can see some excellent benefits in skills, services, and processes,” said Bev Cunningham, a director for talent and resourcing for EMEA at CSC, concerning the value the company receives from its engagement.

Perhaps because it has relied on RPO for so long, or maybe because CSC itself is an outsourcing service provider, the company is a rarity in the HRO market. What’s more remarkable about its strategy is that CSC is leveraging AMS’ capabilities across different geographies at a time when many buyers are just now dipping their toes into the waters of RPO. With few peers in the global RPO market, CSC is helping to carve out a new niche.

What makes CSC unique in the market? A number of European organizations are buying RPO services but on a limited scale. According to industry observers, while RPO has become an acronym nearly as familiar to employers as HRO, its acceptance as a global phenomenon remains limited for several reasons.

Not Ready for Global
For starters, the market hasn’t built out yet, which means providers are still mostly focused on their own backyards. Many of the large U.S.-based RPO vendors—while gaining significant traction in North America—still lack mature global capabilities. Similarly, RPO providers in Europe are just starting to execute on contracts following market hesitation during the past two years. In Asia, RPO remains a novelty; few significant end-to-end deals have actually gone live. So even though some providers are predicting strong growth in global engagements, it’s unclear when many buyers will begin to contract for services with an integrated, global approach.

Beyond provider capability, some buyers are still leery of giving up recruitment responsibilities. Often, buyers may roll out RPO for a particular division or line of business, but they are timid about adoption for all of their recruitment needs. As is the case with CSC, some buyers may take on an “anchor” country to try out RPO before they look to implement it elsewhere. Others may adopt a best-of-breed strategy, preferring to engage RPO for certain types of projects or only using vendors with long-established track records in a particular region.

“There are not that many global players that can provide a global footprint,” said Edward Brooks, a senior advisor with sourcing advisory firm TPI. He pointed out that implementing a North American deal is significantly simpler than executing on a pan-European rollout. After all, with 27 countries and 23 languages spoken, and distinct recruitment practices in each market, the EU presents a complicated landscape.

“No one can jump into a pan-European deal and cover 27 countries overnight,” he added. “However, they can look at a few key markets like the U.K.”

Defining Global RPO
Ask 10 HR directors what RPO means, and you may get 10 different answers. Ask them what global RPO entails, and you might get 10 puzzled expressions. That’s because the global segment is so new and has so few market participants that a consensus definition has yet to emerge. Does “global” mean a contract must span all three major economic regions: the Americas, EMEA, and Asia? Or can it simply require that a deal covers multiple countries in one or more continents? Does a provider delivering service, in, say, the U.K. and Germany qualify as a global player?

Candy Lewandowski, vice president of RPO for the Kelly Outsourcing and Consulting Group, said while buyers and providers might each have a different definition, she considers a true global engagement to encompass a single program operated across all three major markets. That means HR has a singular, coordinated view of all its recruitment activities around the world run by one provider.

“I haven’t seen it (RPO practices) really reach a global program yet. It is confined region by region,” she said.

That’s not to say global RPO, as she defines it, is not in the pipeline. Lewandowski pointed out that today there are a number of cross-border engagements in Europe, and a few involve providers delivering services on a couple of continents. And as providers enter into joint ventures or acquire overseas operations, they will likely help accelerate the sale of global RPO services. For now, however, few employers can even fathom such a comprehensive deal in their organization.

Kirsten Corbell, product manager, RPO, for Manpower, pointed out that global engagements suffer from the classic, new-market syndrome: Until more of these deals are executed, buyers will keep them at arm’s length; and deals won’t get cut unless buyers muster up the courage to get on the bandwagon. “I think we’ve only seen a handful of big RFPs come through so far,” she said, adding that it may be two more years before the movement reaches critical mass.

Most of the handful of multinational deals resemble the CSC engagement, comprising services in a number of markets supported by the vendor’s in-country, on-site workers and a shared-services center that performs administrative and sourcing tasks that don’t require a local presence. Greet Brosens, client director for AMS, said her company hires about 1,300 for CSC across Europe. As many as 15 of its employees work for CSC in the U.K., while the country with the smallest number of hires—Sweden—only requires one on-site person.

She noted that as one of the first multi-country deals in the RPO market, CSC incrementally recognized the benefits of an outsourced solution. By first implementing it in the U.K. and then expanding the relationship in measured doses, the company was able to get a better handle on governance and change management. At the same time, she added, AMS learned how best to deliver services across a number of borders.

“The relationship with CSC did help us to establish what parts of the process can be standardized in order to be efficient and what parts you should respect as high-touch, local services,” she noted. “It absolutely is about getting that balance right.”

Challenges Are Complex
But getting that balance can be tricky, and it’s why a key barrier to global RPO is the complexity of implementing such a deal. Within most multinationals, HR remains divided by region, with each operating its own processes, policies, and even platforms. Recruitment is usually the domain of local and regional offices, despite growing interest in centralizing activities through RPO. Myriad considerations must go into rolling out a global program, much as would be the case in a global HRO effort, and the critical issues vary from region to region.

For instance, TPI’s Brooks pointed out, cross-border engagements in Europe have a different cost structure than those in the U.S. Because the number of hires is typically smaller than in the U.S., the European RPO cost-per-hire is usually higher, especially when a particular market needs only a handful of people. “Recruitment processes are the same [from country to country], but scale will be an issue,” he added.

Of course, hiring practices also vary from country to country. What might be an effective strategy in the U.K. can be a complete failure in France or Spain. Similarly, efforts to brand the employer must account for cultural differences, language, and even regulatory mandates.

The complexity of a multi-country deal is one reason why CSC has incrementally rolled out RPO to eight markets: the U.K., the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Den-mark, Czech Republic, Italy, and Sweden. Cunningham said the company doesn’t use AMS’ services in France, Belgium, Spain, or Portugal but is considering it in the future. And not all of the countries use the same suite of services in every country. Operations in the U.K., for instance, are engaged in the full spectrum of services. Although Cunningham said the eventual goal is to have all of its countries use the same set of RPO services, the fact is each is adopting outsourcing at its own pace.

“In each region, we’ve had very different experiences because you are dealing with different kinds of people and expectations, and there are cultural differences,” she added.

But those challenges are also the motivation behind growing interest in global RPO. In Europe more than elsewhere, HR leaders see opportunity to consolidate and standardize their recruitment processes. Europe has never been a homogenous market, and that’s why an HR service such as pan-European payroll remains elusive. Similarly, recruitment practices and processes vary. Global HRO can act as a tool for HR to unify its many, disparate policies and procedures to yield not only cost savings and operational efficiencies but also better candidates and a higher quality of hire.

As with any HRO service, RPO benefits buyers in a number of ways, and even though a global engagement is exponentially more complex, it is exponentially beneficial as well. Theoretically, having one provider administer an entire recruitment program around the globe means the client can more easily define jobs, holistically plan for human capital needs, and ensure that best practices are implemented across the board. Furthermore, by reducing the use of third-party agencies, buyers will see significant cost savings. And by turning over the administrative tasks to the RPO vendor, the retained organization can focus on core competencies and strategic initiatives, which have a more profound impact on the business.

Will many more HR organizations look to a single RPO provider and technology platform for all of their future recruitment needs around the world? With companies such as AMS, Kelly HRfirst, and Manpower all helping to speed up the segment’s maturity, the question might not be whether there will be an appetite for global RPO but how big and how soon.

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software maintenance

The dictionary defines maintenance as, “The work of keeping something in proper order.” However, this definition does not necessarily fit for software. Software maintenance is different from hardware maintenance because software doesn’t physically wear out, but often gets less useful with age. Software is typically delivered with undiscovered flaws. Therefore, software maintenance is: “The process of modifying existing operational software while leaving its primary functions intact.” Maintenance typically exceeds fifty percent of the systems’ life cycle cost . While software maintenance can be treated as a level of effort activity, there are consequences on quality, functionality, reliability, cost and schedule that can be mitigated through the use of parametric estimation techniques.

1. INTRODUCTION

One of the greatest challenges facing software engineers is the management of change control. It has been estimated that the cost of change control can be between 40% and 70% of the life cycle costs . Software engineers have hoped that new languages and new process would greatly reduce these numbers; however this has not been the case. Fundamentally this is because software is still delivered with a significant number of defects. Capers Jones estimates that there are about 5 bugs per Function Point created during Development . Watts Humphrey found “… even experienced software engineers normally inject 100 or more defects per KSLOC . Capers Jones says, “A series of studies the defect density of software ranges from 49.5 to 94.5 errors per thousand lines of code .” The purpose of this article is to first review the fundamentals of software maintenance and to present alternative approaches to estimating software maintenance. A key element to note is that development and management decisions made during the development process can significantly affect the developmental cost and the resulting maintenance costs.

2. SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE

Maintenance activities include all work carried out post-delivery and should be distinguished from block modifications which represent significant design and development effort and supersede a previously released software package. These maintenance activities can be quite diverse, and it helps to identify exactly what post-delivery activities are to be included in an estimate of maintenance effort. Maintenance activities, once defined, may be evaluated in a quite different light than when called simply “maintenance”. Software maintenance is different from hardware maintenance because software doesn’t physically wear out, but software often gets less useful with age and it may be delivered with undiscovered flaws. In addition to the undiscovered flaws, it is common that some number of known defects pass from the development organization to the maintenance group. Accurate estimation of the effort required to maintain delivered software is aided by the decomposition of the overall effort into the various activities that make up the whole process.

3. APPROACHING THE MAINTENANCE ISSUE

Maintenance is a complicated and structured process. In his textbook, Estimating Software Intensive Systems, Richard Stuzke outlines the typical software maintenance process. It is apparent that the process is more than just writing new code.

The following checklist can be used to explore the realism and accuracy of maintenance requirements.

• Which pieces of software will be maintained?

• How long will the system need to be maintained?

• Are you estimating the entire maintenance problem, or just incremental maintenance?

• What level of maintenance is required?

• Is that which is being called maintenance in fact a new development project?

• Who will do the maintenance? Will it be done organically by the original developer? Will there be a separate team?

• Will there be a separate organization?

• Will maintainers be using the same tools used during development? Are any proprietary tools required for maintenance?

• How much Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) is there? How tightly coupled are the interfaces?

• Some follow-on development may be disguised as maintenance. This will either inflate maintenance figures, or else cause shortfalls if basic maintenance gets pushed aside. These questions will help you ask whether maintenance is being honestly represented.

• Is the activity really an incremental improvement?

• Are healthy chunks of the original code being rewritten or changed?

• Will additional staff be brought in to perform the upgrade?

• Is the maintenance effort schedule regular and fairly flat, or does it contain staffing humps that look like new development?

4. SANITY CHECKS

Although sanity checks should be sought on a year-by-year basis, they should not be attempted for overall development. The reason for this is that maintenance activities can be carried on indefinitely, rendering any life-cycle rules useless. As an example, consider Grady (p. 17):

We spend about 2 to 3 times as much effort maintaining and enhancing software as we spend creating new software.

This and similar observations apply at an organizational level and higher, but not for a specific project. Any development group with a history will be embroiled in the long tail ends of their many delivered projects, still needing indefinite attention. Here are a few quick sanity checks:

• One maintainer can handle about 10,000 lines per year.

• Overall life-cycle effort is typically 40% development and 60% maintenance.

• Maintenance costs on average are one-sixth of yearly development costs.

• Successful systems are usually maintained for 10 to 20 years.

Finally, as in development, the amount of code that is new versus modified makes a difference. The effective size, that is, the equivalent effort if all the work were new code, is still the key input for both development and maintenance cost estimation.

5. FIVE ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES

All software estimation techniques must be able to model the theory and the likely real world result. The real world scenario is that over time, the overlay of changes upon changes makes software increasingly difficult to maintain and thus less useful. Maintenance effort estimation techniques range from the simplistic level of effort method, through more thoughtful analysis and development practice modifications, to the use of parametric models in order to use historical data to project future needs.

5.1 Level of Effort

As is sometimes the case in the development environment, software maintenance can be modeled as a level of effort activity. Given the repair category activities and the great variance that they show, this approach clearly has deficiencies. In this approach, a level of effort to maintain software is based on size and type.

5.2 Level of Effort Plus

Stuzke proposed that software maintenance starts with basic level of effort (minimum people needed to have a core competency and then that that basic core staff must be modified by assessing three additional factors; configuration management, quality assurance, and project management. His process addressed some of the additional factors affecting software maintenance.

5.3 Maintenance Change Factor

Software Cost Estimation with COCOMO II (Boehm 2000) proposes a deceivingly simple, but also quite useful methodology for determining annual maintenance. Maintenance is one of the menu selections in the menu bar. In COCOMO II Maintenance encompasses the process of modifying existing operational software while leaving its primary functions intact. This process excludes:

• Major re-design and re-development (more than 50% new code) of a new software product performing substantially the same functions.

• Design and development of a sizeable (more than 20% of the source instructions comprising the existing product)

interfacing software package which requires relatively little redesigning of the existing product.

• Data processing system operations, data entry, and modification of values in the database.

The maintenance calculations are heavily based upon the Maintenance Change Factor (MCF) and the Maintenance Adjustment Factor (MAF). The MCF is similar to the Annual change Traffic in COCOMO81, except that maintenance periods other than a year can be used. The resulting maintenance effort estimation formula is the same as the COCOMO II Post Architecture development model.

As stated previously, three cost drivers for maintenance differ from development. Those cost drivers are software reliability, modern programming practices, and schedule. COCOMO II assumes that increased investment in software reliability and use of modern programming practices during software development has a strong positive effect upon the maintenance stage.

Annual Maintenance Effort = (Annual Change Traffic) * (Original Software Development Effort)

The quantity Original Software Development Effort refers to the total effort (person-months or other unit of measure) expended throughout development, even if a multi-year project.

The multiplier Annual Change Traffic is the proportion of the overall software to be modified during the year. This is relatively easy to obtain from engineering estimates. Developers often maintain change lists, or have a sense of proportional change to be required even before development is complete.

5.4 Managing Software Maintenance Costs by Developmental Techniques and Management Decisions During Development When it comes to maintenance, “a penny spent is a pound saved.” Better development practices (even if more expensive) can significantly reduce maintenance effort, and reduce overall life cycle cost. The more effort put into development, the less required in maintenance. As an example, the software development cost and schedule can be significantly impacted (reduced) by letting the number of defects delivered grow. This cost and schedule reduction is more than offset by the increase in maintenance cost. The following discussion is an example of how management decision can significantly affect/reduce software maintenance costs.

Lloyd Huff and George Novak of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics in their paper “Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Performance Based Software Sustainment for the F-35 Lightning II” propose a series of development and management decision designed to impact and reduce software maintenance costs. They propose an eight step process to estimate and control software maintenance . Their proposed steps are:

1. Strive for Commonality

2. Apply Industrial Engineering Practices to Software

3. Engage

4. Adopt a Holistic Approach to Sustainment

5. Develop Highly Maintainable Systems and Software

6. Manage the Off-the-Shelf Software

7. Plan for the Unexpected

8. Analyze and Refine the Software Sustainment Business Case (use Parametric software sustainment cost estimates)

5.5 A Parametric Assessment of Software Maintenance

Parametric models like SEER for Software allow maintenance to be modeled in either of two ways:

Estimating maintenance as a part of the total lifecycle cost. Choosing the appropriate Maintenance category parameters will include an estimate of maintenance effort with the development estimate for the individual software program. Several reports and charts show breakdowns of development vs. maintenance effort. This method is best used to evaluate life cycle costs for each individual software program.

Estimating maintenance as a separate activity. Using the appropriate maintenance parameters for the software to be maintained you can model the maintenance effort as a separate activity. This method will allow you to fine tune your maintenance estimate by adjusting parameters. Maintenance size should be the same as development size, but should be entered as all pre-existing code. This method can also be useful in breaking out total project maintenance costs from project development costs.

A good parametric estimate for maintenance includes a wide range of information. Critical information for completing a software maintenance estimate is the size or amount of software that will be maintained, the quality of that software, the quality and availability of the documentation, and the type or amount of maintenance that will be done. Many organizations don’t actually estimate maintenance costs; they simply have a budget for software maintenance. In this case, a parametric model should be used to compute how much maintenance can actually be performed with the given budget.

Estimating and planning for maintenance are critical activities if the software is required to function properly throughout its expected life. Even with a limited budget, a plan can be made to use the resources available in the most efficient, productive manner. Looking at the diagram above, you can see that not only are the multiple inputs that impact the maintenance, but there are several key outputs that provide the information necessary to plan a successful maintenance effort.

6. Conclusion

The conclusions of this article are:

• Software maintenance can be modeled using a simplistic method like Level of Effort Staffing, but this technique has significant drawbacks.

• Software maintenance costs can be significantly affected by management decisions during the developmental process.

• Software maintenance can be accurately estimated using parametric processes.

• Software maintenance is best modeled when development and management decisions are coupled with parametric cost estimation techniques.

REFERENCES

[1]Software Maintenance Concepts and Practices (second Edition) by Penny Grubb and Armstrong Takang, World Scientific, 2005.

[2]Estimating Software Intensive Systems; Richard Stuzke, 2005, Addison-Wesley.

[3]Lloyd Huff, George Novak; Lockheed Martin Aeronautics; Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Performance Based Software Sustainment for the F-35 Lightning II.

[4]G. Edward Bryan, “CP-6: Quality and Productivity Measures in the 15-Year Life Cycle of an Operating System,” Software Quality Journal 2, 129-144, June 1993.

[5] Software Sizing, Estimation, and Risk Management; Daniel D. Galorath, Michael W. Evans, 2006, Auerbach Publications.

By: Bob Hunt

Het concept van “intellectuele eigendom” in India de afgelopen jaren heeft genomen over een aantal epische proporties voor een aantal van redenen. Een van de belangrijkste redenen is toe te schrijven aan het groeiende bewustzijn onder het stedelijk indiaanse bevolking, is van de betekenis en, nog belangrijker, de commerciële voordelen bij de bescherming van haar intellectuele eigendomsrechten, zowel binnen als buiten India. En in traditionele beginselen van de bescherming van intellectuele eigendom, octrooirecht is het bevorderen van wetenschappelijk onderzoek, nieuwe technologie en industriële vooruitgang. Het basisbeginsel van het octrooirecht is dat het octrooi wordt slechts verleend voor een uitvinding zoals de bouw en nuttig deze uitvinding moet hebben nieuwheid en bruikbaarheid. Het verlenen van octrooi wordt dus van de industriële eigendom en ook wel een intellectuele eigendom. En de computer-software is een betrekkelijk nieuw begunstigde van de octrooibescherming.

De term “Patent”vindt zijn oorsprong uit de term” Brief Patent”. Deze uitdrukking ‘Brief Patent’ betekende open brief en werden instrumenten in het kader van het Grote Zegel van de koning van Engeland aangepakt door de Kroon op alle onderwerpen in het algemeen waarin de Kroon die bepaalde rechten en privileges op een of meer personen in het koninkrijk. Het was in het latere deel van de 19e eeuw nieuwe uitvindingen op het gebied van kunst, proces, procede of van de wijze van vervaardiging, machines en andere stoffen die door de fabrikanten werden verhoogd en de uitvinders werd zeer veel belangstelling dat de uitvindingen gedaan door hen moet niet worden geschonden door een ander met het kopiëren van hen of door het aannemen van het door hen gebruikte methoden. Voor het opslaan van de belangen van uitvinders, de toenmalige Britse machthebbers uitgevaardigd de Indiase Octrooien en Design Act, 1911.

Met betrekking tot de octrooieerbaarheid van software-gerelateerde uitvindingen, het is op het moment een van de meest verhitte gebieden van het debat . Software octrooieerbaar is geworden in de afgelopen jaren in de meeste rechtsgebieden (zij het met beperkingen in bepaalde landen, met name de ondertekenaars van het Europees Octrooiverdrag of EPC) en het aantal van softwareoctrooien zijn snel gestegen.

Betekenis van de octrooieerbaarheid van software

De term “software” niet over een precieze definitie en zelfs de software-industrie niet om een specifieke definitie. Maar het wordt vooral gebruikt voor de beschrijving van alle verschillende types van computerprogramma’s. Computerprogramma’s zijn in principe verdeeld in “toepassingsprogramma’s” en “operating system’s”. Applicatie programma’s zijn ontworpen om specifieke taken die moeten worden uitgevoerd door middel van de computer en het besturingssysteem programma’s worden gebruikt voor het beheren van de interne functies van de computer te vergemakkelijken gebruik van application program.

Hoewel de term ‘Software patent ‘Beschikt niet over een algemeen aanvaarde definitie. Een definitie die door de Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure is dat een software-octrooi is een “octrooi op de prestaties van een computer gerealiseerd door middel van een computerprogramma”.

Volgens Richard Stallman, de co -ontwikkelaar van het GNU-Linux besturingssysteem en voorstander van Vrije Software, zegt: “Softwarepatenten zijn octrooien die betrekking hebben op software-ideeën, ideeën die je zou gebruiken in het ontwikkelen van software.

Dat is Softwareoctrooien verwijzen naar octrooien dat kan worden toegekend voor producten of processen (met inbegrip van methoden), die ook kunnen bestaan uit software of als een belangrijke of op zijn minst noodzakelijk onderdeel van de uitvoering daarvan, dat wil zeggen de vorm waarin zij in de praktijk (of gebruikt) voor de productie van het effect dat zij van plan op te leveren.

vroeg voorbeeld van een software-octrooi

Op 21 sep 1962, een Britse octrooiaanvraag, getiteld “Een Computer voorbereid op de automatische oplossing Problemen met het programmeren van Linear “werd ingesteld. De uitvinding was bezorgd met een efficiënte memory management voor de simplex-algoritme, en kan worden uitgevoerd door louter software betekent. Het octrooi is verleend op 17 augustus 1966 en lijkt een van de eerste software-octrooien.

Begripsmatig verschil tussen auteurs-en octrooirechten

Software is van oudsher beschermd onder de auteurswet sinds code past heel goed in de beschrijving van een literair werk. Zo Software is beschermd als werken van letterkunde in het kader van de Berner Conventie, en alle software geschreven wordt automatisch gedekt door het auteursrecht. Dit geeft de maker om te voorkomen dat een andere entiteit uit het namaken van het programma en er is meestal niet nodig om te registreren code, zodat zij onderworpen zijn aan het auteursrecht. Terwijl de octrooieerbaarheid van software is onlangs gebleken (al was het maar in de VS, Japan en Europa) waar, Octrooien geven hun eigenaar het recht om te verhinderen gebruik te maken van een geclaimde uitvinding, zelfs indien zij is onafhankelijk ontwikkeld is en er geen sprake was van het kopiëren van betrokkenen.

Voorts moet worden opgemerkt dat octrooien betrekking hebben op de onderliggende methodieken die in een bepaald stukje software. Aan de andere auteursrecht voorkomt dat het direct kopiëren van software, maar niet voorkomen dat andere auteurs uit het schrijven van hun eigen uitwerkingen van de onderliggende methodieken.

De problemen met betrekking tot de overdracht van octrooirechten op software zijn echter een stuk complexer dan het afsluiten van de auteursrechten op hen. Concreet zijn er twee uitdagingen die in een stuit bij de behandeling van softwarepatenten. De eerste gaat over het instrument van het octrooi zelf en de vraag of de wijze van bescherming die is aangepast aan het karakter van de software-industrie. De tweede is de aard van software, en of deze dient te worden onderworpen aan het octrooieren.

Echter problemen met betrekking tot de overdracht van octrooirechten op software zijn veel complexer dan het afsluiten van de auteursrechten op hen. Concreet zijn er twee uitdagingen die in een stuit bij de behandeling van softwarepatenten. De eerste gaat over het instrument van het octrooi zelf en de vraag of de wijze van bescherming die is aangepast aan het karakter van de software-industrie. De tweede is de aard van software en of deze dient te worden onderworpen aan het octrooieren.

A) verschillende aangelegenheden

bescherming van het auteursrecht strekt zich uit tot alle originele literaire werken (onder hen, computerprogramma’s), dramatische, muzikale en artistieke werken, waaronder films. Op grond van het auteursrecht, de bescherming wordt alleen gegeven aan de specifieke uitdrukking van een idee dat werd goedgekeurd en niet het idee zelf. (Bijvoorbeeld, een programma toe te voegen nummers geschreven in twee verschillende talen zou tellen als twee verschillende uitingen van een idee) Inderdaad zijn, onafhankelijk rendering van een auteursrechtelijk beschermd werk door een derde partij zou geen inbreuk maken op het auteursrecht.

Over het algemeen octrooien worden verleend op een ‘nieuwe’ en ‘nuttige’ kunst, proces, procede of van de wijze van vervaardiging, de machines, apparaten of andere voorwerpen of stoffen geproduceerd door de fabricage. Wereldwijd is de houding ten aanzien van de octrooieerbaarheid van software is sceptisch

B) Wie kan aanspraak maken op het recht op octrooi / copyright?

het algemeen is de auteur van een literaire, artistieke, muzikale of dramatische werk wordt automatisch de eigenaar van zijn auteursrecht. Het octrooi, aan de andere kant wordt verleend aan de eerste aanvragen, ongeacht wie de eerste uitvinder was. Octrooien kosten veel geld. Ze kosten nog meer betalen van de advocaten van de aanvraag te schrijven dan ze kosten ook daadwerkelijk van toepassing zijn. Het duurt doorgaans enkele jaren voor de aanvraag geacht te krijgen, zelfs doen octrooibureaus al een uiterst slordige taak van de behandeling.

C) Rechten verbonden

Copyright wet geeft de eigenaar het exclusieve recht om het materiaal te reproduceren, de uitgifte van kopieën, presteren, aanpassen en vertalen van het werk. Maar deze rechten worden getemperd door de rechten van de fair use die beschikbaar zijn voor het publiek. Onder “fair use”, bepaalde vormen van gebruik van auteursrechtelijk materiaal niet zou worden geschonden, zoals het gebruik voor academische doeleinden, enz. Verdere berichtgeving, onafhankelijke recreatie van een auteursrechtelijk beschermd werk zou geen inbreuk. Dus als hetzelfde stuk code werden onafhankelijk is ontwikkeld door twee verschillende bedrijven, noch zou een vordering hebben tegen de andere.

Een octrooi verleent aan de eigenaar van een absoluut monopolie dat is het recht om te verhinderen dat anderen maken , Te gebruiken, ten verkoop aanbieden, zonder zijn / haar toestemming. In het algemeen is de octrooibescherming is een veel sterkere wijze van bescherming dan het auteursrecht, omdat de bescherming strekt zich uit tot het niveau van het idee belichaamd door een injuncts software en aanverwante vormen van gebruik van een uitvinding als goed. Het zou een verzwakking van het auteursrecht op software die de basis vormt van alle Europese software-ontwikkeling, omdat onafhankelijke creaties door het auteursrecht beschermd zou worden attackable door octrooien. Veel octrooiaanvragen dekking van zeer kleine en specifieke algoritmen of technieken die worden gebruikt in een breed scala van programma’s. Vaak wordt de “uitvindingen” die in een octrooiaanvraag onafhankelijk zijn geformuleerd en zijn al in gebruik door andere programmeurs wanneer de aanvraag wordt ingediend.

D) Duur van de bescherming

De TRIPS-overeenkomst mandaten een periode van ten minste 20 jaar voor een product octrooi en 15 jaar in het geval van een proces octrooi. Voor het auteursrecht, de overeenkomst voorziet in een minimale periode van het leven van de auteur plus zeventig jaar.

Rechtsgebieden van octrooieerbaarheid van software
materiële recht betreffende
de octrooieerbaarheid van software en computers geïmplementeerde uitvindingen, en jurisprudentie interpretatie van de wettelijke bepalingen, zijn verschillend in verschillende jurisdicties.

Softwareoctrooien het kader van multilaterale verdragen:

• Softwarepatenten kader van TRIPS Overeenkomst

• Software-octrooien in het kader van het Europees Octrooiverdrag

• Computerprogramma’s en het Verdrag tot samenwerking inzake octrooien

Software patenteren kader van TRIPS-overeenkomst

De WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), in het bijzonder artikel 27, worden onderworpen aan een debat over de internationale juridische kader voor de octrooieerbaarheid van software, en over de vraag of software en in computers geïmplementeerde uitvindingen moet worden beschouwd als een gebied van de technologie.

Volgens art. 27 van de TRIPS-overeenkomst, octrooien worden verleend voor uitvindingen, producten dan wel werkwijzen, op alle gebieden van de technologie, mits zij nieuw zijn, een inventieve berusten en vatbaar zijn voor industriële toepassing. (…) Octrooi kan worden verleend en kunnen octrooirechten worden genoten zonder onderscheid naar de plaats van uitvinding, het gebied van de technologie en ongeacht of de producten worden ingevoerd of ter plaatse geproduceerd. “

Echter, er zijn geen arbitrageprocedures betrekking tot software-octrooien. relevantie ervan voor octrooieerbaarheid in de computer geïmplementeerde methoden voor de bedrijfsvoering, informatietechnologie en software, blijft onzeker, aangezien de TRIPS-overeenkomst is onderworpen aan interpretatie.

Software octrooien in het kader van de Europees Octrooiverdrag

lidstaten van de Europese Unie, het Europees Octrooibureau en de andere nationale octrooibureaus hebben afgegeven vele octrooien voor uitvindingen waarbij software omdat het Europees Octrooiverdrag (EOV) in werking getreden in de late 1970. Artikel 52 van het Europees Octrooiverdrag sluit “programma’s voor computers” uit van octrooieerbaarheid (Art. 52 (2)) in de mate dat een octrooiaanvraag betrekking heeft op een computerprogramma’s “als zodanig” (Art. 52 (3)). Dit is geïnterpreteerd te betekenen dat een uitvinding die een niet voor de hand liggend “technische bijdrage” of lost een “technisch probleem” in een niet voor de hand liggende manier is octrooieerbaar, zelfs indien een computerprogramma wordt gebruikt in de uitvinding. computers geïmplementeerde uitvindingen die alleen het oplossen van een business probleem met behulp van een computer, in plaats van een technisch probleem, worden beschouwd als niet-octrooieerbaar ontbreekt een inventieve stap. Niettemin is het feit dat een uitvinding is nuttig in het bedrijfsleven, betekent dit niet dat is niet octrooieerbaar indien ze ook een technisch probleem.

Computerprogramma’s en het Verdrag tot samenwerking inzake octrooien

Het Verdrag tot samenwerking inzake octrooien (PCT) is een internationale octrooirecht verdrag, dat voorziet in een uniforme procedure voor het indienen van octrooiaanvragen bescherming van uitvindingen. Een octrooiaanvraag is ingediend in het kader van het PCT heet een internationale aanvraag of PCT-toepassing. In het kader van het PCT, de internationale zoek-en het voorafgaande onderzoek wordt uitgevoerd door de International Searching Authorities (ISA) en de Internationale Voorlopige Autoriteit van het examen (IPEA).

huidige trend

Maar voordat we beginnen meldplicht de komst van een nieuw tijdperk en verevening van het octrooieren van software in India zou het de moeite waard om onze terwijl een pauze te nemen en een onderzoek naar de realiteit van software patenten. We kunnen dit doen door te kijken naar voorbeelden van landen waar de octrooieerbaarheid van software is al aan de orde van de dag, zoals in de VS en Japan

Verenigde Staten

De United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) heeft van oudsher niet als software octrooieerbaar is, omdat in de wet te patenten kunnen slechts worden toegekend aan “processen, machines, artikelen van de fabricage en samenstelling van de stof “. Dwz in het bijzonder octrooien niet kunnen worden verleend aan” wetenschappelijke waarheden “of” wiskundige uitdrukkingen “van hen. De USPTO op het standpunt gesteld dat de software was in feite een wiskundig algoritme, en dus niet octrooieerbaar zijn, in de jaren 1980. Dit standpunt van de USPTO werd aangevochten met een plaatsbepaling 1981 Supreme Court zaak Diamond v. Diehr. De zaak betrof een apparaat dat gebruikt computer software om te zorgen voor de juiste timing bij de verwarming, of genezen, rubber. Hoewel de software was de integraal onderdeel van het apparaat had ook andere functies die verband houden met de reële wereld te manipuleren. De rechter oordeelde dat als een apparaat om schimmelvorming rubber, het was een octrooieerbare object. De rechter in wezen geoordeeld dat terwijl algoritmen zelf kon niet worden gepatenteerd, apparaten die gebruikt ze kon.

Maar in 1982 het Amerikaanse Congres heeft een nieuwe rechter namelijk de Federal Circuit te horen octrooi gevallen. Deze rechtbank toegestaan octrooieerbaarheid van software, te worden behandeld op uniforme wijze in heel de VS. Door een aantal zaken in deze landmark rechtbank, door het begin van de jaren 1990 tot de octrooieerbaarheid van software is goed ontwikkeld. Bovendien hebben een aantal succesvolle rechtszaken blijkt dat software-octrooien zijn nu uitvoerbaar in de VS. Dat is de reden, het octrooieren van software is geworden op grote schaal in de VS. Vanaf 2004 zijn ongeveer 145.000 octrooien had uitgegeven in 22 klassen van de octrooien die in computers geïmplementeerde uitvindingen.

Japan

Software is octrooieerbaar rechtstreeks in Japan. In verschillende rechtszaken in Japan, softwarepatenten zijn met succes toegepast. In 2005, bijvoorbeeld, Matsushita won een gerechtelijk bevel blokkeren Justsystem van inbreukmakende Matsuhita het Japanse patent 2803236 betrekking tekstverwerking software.

Indiase standpunt

Met betrekking tot computerprogramma’s, in patenten ( Amendment) Act, 2002, de omvang van niet-octrooieerbaar onderwerp in de wet is gewijzigd om de volgende tekst: “een wiskundige methode of een methode of een zakelijke computer programma per se of algoritmen”.

Echter, de recente wijzigingen (Ordinance van 2004), waarbij de Patents Act 1970, werd bekendgemaakt na instemming van de president van India en is van kracht vanaf 1 januari 2005. Afgezien van de verandering in de farmaceutische en agro chemicaliën, een van de kiem van deze amendementen Ordinance tracht te brengen is dat het octrooieren van embedded software.

Vandaar het amendement betekent dat met een wiskundige methode of een eigen bedrijf of een algoritme niet kan worden geoctrooieerd, een computer-programma, dat heeft een technische toepassing in een bedrijfstak of die geïntegreerd kan worden in hardware kunnen worden geoctrooieerd. Aangezien alle commerciële software-industrie heeft zo’n aanvraag en alle toepassingen kunnen worden opgevat als technische toepassingen, het opent natuurlijk alle software patenten.

In ieder geval heeft iedere onderneming streeft naar een dossier octrooiaanvraagprocedure voor software in het kader van de ordonnantie moet ervoor zorgen dat zijn uitvinding de eerste plaats, volgt op de drie fundamentele proeven:

• Inventive Stappen
• Nieuw
• Nut

Daarom is het belangrijk dat de software geprobeerd te beschermen is niet alleen een nieuwe versie of een verbetering ten opzichte van een bestaande code.
Verder is in overeenstemming met de specifieke eisen van het Besluit met betrekking tot de octrooieerbaarheid van software, de software moet noodzakelijkerwijs een technische toepassing voor de industrie of zijn inherent aan of “embedded” in de hardware. Dit is om voorkomen dat tegen eventuele toekomstige geschillen of vorderingen van de inbreuken wordt opgetrokken, en dat is een duidelijke kans zelfs na een octrooi is verleend.

Conclusie

India van haar kant lijkt te hebben gekozen voor de meer conservatieve benadering van de Europese normen voor de octrooieerbaarheid van software. Maar de ordonnantie beslist heeft het nut en de relevantie in het huidige India, met name voor onze groeiende binnenlandse semi-conductor industrie. Dit, samen met de justitiële tempereren zou zeker zorgen voor een verstandig gebruik van octrooi-bescherming, terwijl het aan de industrie om te groeien via innovatie en uitvindingen, om daarmee de risico’s verminderen van triviale octrooien chocking het leven van de echte vernieuwingen en uitvindingen. Dit is de reden van een octrooi dient altijd te worden behandeld als een “Dubbel zwaard” te wielded met de nodige voorzichtigheid en gevoeligheid. Nu de vraag of dit in werkelijkheid zal worden uitgevoerd op een stevige basis of zal worden breed van opzet door toepassing (zoals in de VS), en, nog belangrijker, of de ordonnantie in feite zou leiden tot meer innovatie en uitvindingen in de software-industrie, valt nog te bezien.