 This surge was met with a dramatic decrease in the average grant rate of business method patents during the following six years; it lingered around 8 percent between 2003 and 2006 (8 percent is extremely low in comparison to the average of 50 percent across all technical fields).Since 2006, the average grant rate for business method patents has risen to the current rate of roughly 25 percent.In New Zealand computer programs are to be excluded from patentability under a 2010 Patents Bill, but guidelines permitting embedded software are to be drafted once the bill has passed.