Slashdot Mirror
EU Moves Towards Single European Patent Standard
theodp writes "A European Parliament committee Tuesday moved toward setting the first pan-European standard for software patents, but outlawed the U.S. practice of patenting business methods, such as Amazon's one-click Internet shopping. 'The European law sets the right benchmark rather than the looser U.S. system,' said the director of public policy for Europe at the Business Software Alliance, which represents 20 software companies including Microsoft and Apple. Amazon representatives in Brussels declined to comment on the new European legislation."
It sounds like they have learned from some of the mistakes our
patent system has made.
Under the European law, software companies would obtain
exclusive rights only for programs that demonstrate novelty in
their "technical contribution."
Their reasoning: "We don't want to arrive at a model where
in the U.S. everything under the sun can be patented,"
I think they are approaching this from a better angle. I still
disagree with the general notion of patenting algorithms as
such. I don't think algorithms are invented any more than
mathematical truths are invented, rather they are discovered.
IMO, there is a difference and a patent shouldn't be granted on
that. Although, I will admit there is room to disagree with
that position.
It looks like they will be avoiding the major abuses we are
experiencing though, since you can patent a novel approach to
hand writing recognition, but not hand writing recognition in
general.
Now, the question is how do we get the U.S. government to adopt
this standard? Will it be like the Metric system, where we are
too entrenched to switch to a better system? Let's hope not for
our sakes.
Doug Tolton
"The destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn't." -John Galt
Perhaps the EU parliament (or whatever) isn't as useless after all. Though what will become out of this pan-European system in a few years? Let's keep our fingers crossed..
The US patent system was the first of its kind. The first version of anything is never the best version.
I just wish our government was less like those people that claim engine design peaked in the early 70s. (there are lots of them in the south)
Could someone please mention where patents on web based applications or "business-models" ( a cookie?) are actually valid?
Does a patent on a web technology apply to where the server is operating, who owns it or who's using it?
Although the European Patent Convention (EPC) says that "programs for computers" are not patentable whereas the (draft) Directive explicitly says that "computer-implemented inventions" are (art. 52), there is actually no difference:
The EPC was never meant to prevent patents on computer-implemented inventions; the clause that prevents patent on "computer programmes" simply has no effect -- patent lawyers agree that they are either "technical" (and patentable) or "non-technical" (and not patentable). Unlike the US patent system, the European patent system only protects "technical" inventions.
Patents on "technical" computer programmes are not that bad -- after all, they are technical inventions that just happen to be implemented with computers.
The real problem is that patent offices tend to view all computer software as "technical" because a computer is technical. This results in patents on algorithms, business methods, etc. that just happen to be implemented with computers.
The draft EU Directive does a lot to clarify this: It says several times that computer programmes are not technical just because they run on a computer. It also says that algorithms are not patentable and that a patent on a technical invention that uses an algorithm does not cover the algorithm itself (yeah, the Yahoo editor obviously did not read the documents; s/he even got the date wrong: 2003-06-16 was Monday, not Tuesday).
The rationale clearly says that they don't want algorithms and business models to be convered.
These clarifications will actually result in less software patents because all the bogous software patents that are not patents on computer-implemented technical inventions but on computer-implemented algorithms, business models, etc., are now so clearly outlawed by the explicit text of the Directive that every patent officer should get it.
Claus
but...
Software development is a global business. Changes in one market affects development everywhere, not just developers that happen to live in that market.
Tor
This is a wide-open door through which even the most rediculously obvious software patents could (and therefore will) slip.
This is clearly hyperbolae. The parade of horribles didn't happen in the U.S., it is unlikely to happen in the E.U. The U.S. patent office finally rejects hundreds of applications in software arts every day, and will continue to do so.
Nothing in the EU proposal permits (and the law actually precludes) the allowance of a patent claim, where the differences betweeen the claim and the prior art would be obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art.
What about software patents that cannot be patented in the EU at this time, but which already apply in the US?
Will companies be able to apply for these patents as soon as software patents are allowed in the EU? Wouldn't that technically be considered prior art in the EU?
"Oooh, does that mean we get to kick some puffy white mad zionist butt?"
This ./ article is very misleading
/everything under the sun/ be patentable, just as in the US, as long as a computer is somehow involved.
All the juri rapporteur and the European commission have done is to cloud the issue in confusion.
At the heart of the proposal lies a text that makes
The effect of the cloud of confusion is to make people think that actually the EU has a more restrictive system than the US, but patent lawyers will know better.
'technical contribution' is completely undefined and the clear limit of article 52(2)c, an explicit ban on software patents is removed.
That means that business methods like 'selling cucumbers with the aid of a data-transmission device' will be patentable. As long as 'business' is not mentioned in the claim.
Do some background reading (www.ffii.org) before you post nonsense like 'EU will get better patent regime than US'
See this petition signed by the leading European computer scientists, including Robin Milner (Turing Award) and Géraud Sénizergues (Godel Award):
The message is in Catalan, but contains the full text of the petition in English with list of signatories. The petition explicitly warns against claims that only patents with "technical contribution" will be granted, when the practice of the patent office has opened the door to anything being considered technical.