Patenting In The Burst Test

gerddie writes "Heise has an interview with S. Kiesewetter-Köbinger, a patent examiner of the German PA, about the cultural break, software patents will impose to Europe if they become valid. He points out the danger to open source and science, and that with patents on software even mathematical methods would become patentable because there is no longer any difference. There is also a companion article competition in the court room, that gives some more insight in the history and current state of the patent system. All is in german, but as always the fish is your friend."

Comments

The fish is -not- your friend.

[sanermind]

As, if Hemos had even bothered to read the translated article, he would have realized that it is long, and that babelfish STOPS TRANSLATING it less than a third of a way through the article.

use freetranslation.com or one of the many other available translators instead.

yeesh.

Re:The fish is -not- your friend.

[gerddie]

Please don't blame Hemos, I was the one to add the babelfish link, because I didn't know of something better.
Now I do.

What many americans dont know..

[General888]

and many europeans neither, is that software patents have been for some time common practice in European Union. Officially pure software patents are not allowed, but unofficially they are approved. The patents are just labeled as being in the domain of "electronic information processing and data communications" and as such are not pure software patents.

Check EPC article 52(1)c that says computer software is not patentable, and article 52(3) that has the infamous "as such" clause that EPO uses as a loop hole to grant software patents.

Unfortunately it seems europe has lost this race even before anyone knew it was an issue.