Dutch MPs Demand Obviousness Criteria in European Patent Law

lvd writes "In a fine display of common sense and knowledgability, dutch MP Rik Hindriks demands that first sharp and effectual obviousness and novelty criteria be put in the european patent law, and only then the current ban on software patents could be lifted. A summary is available of the hearing on patents between the Dutch parliament, the dutch IT branche organisation, and the Dutch open source society where this was concluded. A statement of Hindriks (in dutch) can be found there as well."

Comments

What's not obvious?

[Anoriymous Coward]

I mean, I'm sitting in front of a powerful general-purpose computing machine which is connected in well-known ways to millions of other general-purpose computing machines. You come along with your patent application saying "I can do X" [not the windowing system]. Am I supposed to be surprised? If it's not obvious, it's probably stupid.

Now if youy're trying to patent an algorithm or codec, that's a different matter. But in those cases it's the algorithm that you should be patenting, not the software implementation of it, which, given the public nature of your patented algorithm, is probably obvious.

Obviousness

[Animats]

There's no indication of what the Dutch want to use as obviousness criteria. Nobody seems to have brought that up. They need to work on definitions.

It's often possible to objectively prove non-obviousness in patent cases. If you can show that other people skilled in the art tried to solve the problem and failed where you succeeded, you've shown non-obviousness.

Re:Obviousness

[Bobo the Space Chimp]

> If you can show that other people skilled in the
> art tried to solve the problem and failed where
> you succeeded, you've shown non-obviousness.

Hence the validity of Amazon's 1-click purchasing patent. In a very "The Inmates Are Running the Asylum" sort of way, it was not obvious -- except in retrospect.