The Impact of Institutional Design on the Development of Patent Law Patentability of Computer Programs and Business Methods in Europe and the United States of America as a Topical Example

tent law fairly uniform among the Member States even without one centralized entity in charge of patent protection and enforcement. The main difference, however, is that in this development towards reasonably uniform standards, extreme solutions could never sustain and govern the issue of patentability of computer programs throughout Europe. Therefore, the problem of belated correction of doubtful and 'frozen' case law, framing the standards of patentability throughout Europe for a considerable time, does not really exist in the present European system. Finally, the results of the comparative assessment are put into the overarching context of the question which lesson Europe can learn from the creation, institutional design and performance of the CAFC regarding the necessity and appropriate institutional design of a future centralized European patent litigation system.