Slashdot Mirror
Information Patents in the US and Europe
Over_and_Done writes "First Monday has an article up discussing the differences in information process patents between the US and Europe. The author mentions that the United States reform is too focused on process reform, arguing that they should be instead focusing on what is and is not patentable (i.e. Business Method patents). He also states that Europe is choosing to instead follow a different track, and make the process a little more restrictive, resulting in a rift between the US and Europe. The article raises a lot of interesting facts that I was not aware of, including the incident where the US threatened to walk out of the WIPO
meeting because the proposed treaty did not 'mandate patents for all fields of activity.' The author, although critical of the policies on both sides of the pond states that the rift is in some ways healthy, as it encourages an open debate and requires people to look at the patent issue from many different angles."
This abuse of patent law is nothing new. I forget his name, but in the early days of automobiles, someone actually put a patent on the car. He forced everyone to pay royalties until a determined Henry Ford fought him in court and won. Oh yeah, just giving everyone notice, I am putting a patent on the process of breathing. You will all now have to pay me a royalty or stop breathing altogetherl
While Bush may have formally pulled out of the treaty, he didn't really have a choice. Treaties require consent from the Senate. The Senate voted 95-0 not to ratify it.
Yes, the EPO is not bound by the EU.
However, the EU can nevertheless issue directives (guidelines to amend national law) and regulations (binding law) relating to patents. This can be extended towards the EPO, by letting EU member states have it put in the EPC (European Patent Convention). For example, this happened with the biotech directive.
Besides that, it is still possible to invalidate patents in front of a national court and in the future in front of a European court. With this, bear in mind that litigation costs in Mainland Europe are about 1% of costs in US (For UK, take 10%).
With respect to the remark in the posting:
The truth is (as explained in this very good paper) that the patent authorities in both the US and Europe have bent over backwards to extend the scope of patents.
That is not fully true for the EPO. The software patent policy goes quite far, but the EPO has mentioned several times that it will not do anything with busines method patent applications; they will not even be searched, say bye bye to your search fee. And this is not likely to change in the near future.
The paper lays out how patent professionals keep pushing this,
That's what I get paid for. The examiner gets paid for not allowing patents that do not meet the requirments of the EPC.
IANAL (still 9 months to go)