Software and computer programs respectively are protected by copyright law. Thereby the copyright protects the actual implementation, that is the program code, and not the abstract process forming the basis of a computer program. It is thus possible to effect the same basic idea in an other computer program, or to reprogram the respective functionality of a software, without infring-ing copyright law. It would be obvious to try to protect software with paents. Patents protect tech-nical inventions, i.e. new and non-obvious solutions of technical problems. By principle, however, computer programs as such may not be patented under European law. A word processor software as such, for example, does not solve a technical problem and therefore is excluded from patentability. However, if computer programs are used to implement a technical solution of a technical problem, such a "computer-implemented invention" may be elligible for patent protection in Europe under certain circumstances.