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Software patents: IPO revises practice and High Court makes another
pro-patentee decision
,----[ Quote ]
| The Intellectual Property Office has revised its guidance on claims relating
| to computer programs, reflecting the more permissive stance taken by the High
| Court in the recent Astron Clinica case. The High Court has made a further
| pro-patentee ruling, this time in the case of Symbian's application for an
| improved method of accessing a dynamic link library.
|
| As reported in our last technology update, the practice of the UK
| Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) of flatly rejecting patent claims to
| computer program products has recently been overruled. The case law in the
| area, formulated in the 2006 Aerotel and Macrossan decisions (see our
| Internet & E-Commerce Update of November 2006) was clarified in January 2008
| by the decision of the High Court in Astron Clinica & Ors (see coverage in
| our last Updated dated February 2008).
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http://www.olswang.com/updates/tech_q208/it_q208.pdf
Possible job from the inside:
Lost in translation: language barriers still hold back the Community Patent
,----[ Quote ]
| Despite the hard work put into reforming the intellectual property landscape
| during its presidency of the EU in the first half of this year, Slovenia has
| admitted there won’t be a breakthrough under its stewardship.
|
| [...]
|
| The only country to oppose this idea is Spain, which has fought hardest
| against plans to simplify the linguistic requirements of the patent system.
| The country argues that Spanish is a more important language than both French
| and German, two of the official languages of the European patent system (the
| other being English), because of its use in Latin America. It fears that if
| patents aren’t available in Spanish, then Spain will become an economic
| backwater.
|
| Spain to the rescue?
|
| But the arrival last month of a new Spanish minister in charge of science and
| innovation, molecular biologist Cristina Garmendia, gives reason to hope for
| a change in the Spanish position, Konteas said.
|
| “The Spanish government seems ready to change the focus of the economy from
| tourism and construction towards innovation-led pursuits. They seem to be
| going in the right direction.”
`----
http://bulletin.sciencebusiness.net/ebulletins/showissue.php3?page=/548/2893/10652&ch=1
Working breakfast on Community Patent
,----[ Quote ]
| Here's a report from a breakfast meeting I was at yesterday on the topic of
| SMEs and the Community Patent. There were 50 seats, all full. The speakers
| included representatives from the Commission, the Parliament, and the
| Slovenian EU Presidency.
`----
http://fsfe.org/en/fellows/ciaran/ciaran_s_free_software_notes/working_breakfast_on_community_patent
Microsoft lobbyists like ACT are behind this. More attempts to lump that in
from the back door.
Days ago:
The ghost of software patents is back!
,----[ Quote ]
| Life is never easy for an open source evangelist. The OOXML drama came to a
| close on 2nd April 2008 and we were on to our next issue -- software patents.
| The Draft Patent Manual might end up bringing software patents through the
| back door. this would be surprising because the Indian parliament explicitly
| rejected software patents in the Patent Amendment Act 2005. In this blog, I
| am including extracts from a letter that I sent to the Patent Office on 11th
| April 2008. The deadline for comments was 15th April 2008.
`----
http://osindia.blogspot.com/2008/05/ghost-of-software-patents-is-back.html
[ffii] McCreevy wants to legalise Software Patents via a US-EU patent treaty
,----[ Quote ]
| Brussels, 13 May 2008 -- European Commissioner McCreevy is pushing for a
| bilateral patent treaty with the United States. This Tuesday 13 May in
| Brussels, White House and European representatives will try to adopt a
| tight roadmap for the signature of a EU-US patent treaty by the end of
| the year. Parts of the proposed treaty will contain provision on
| software patents, and could legalise them on both sides of the Atlantic.
|
| "TEC talks are the current push for software patents. The US want to
| eliminate the higher standards of the European Patent Convention. The
| bilateral agenda is dictated by multinationals gathered in the
| Transatlantic Economic Business Dialogue (TABD). When you have a look
| who is in the Executive Board of the TABD, you find not a single
| European SME in there", says Benjamin Henrion, a Brussels based patent
| policy specialist.
|
| The Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC) which comprises EU and US high
| level representatives put a substantive harmonisation of patent law on
| its agenda. Substantive patent law covers what is patentable or not. The
| attempt to impose the low US standards on Europe via the Substantive
| Patent Law Treaty (SPLT) process utterly failed at the World
| Intellectual Property Organisation. Also progress in the WIPO B+
| subgroup (without development nations) could not be reached.
`----
http://lwn.net/Articles/282000/
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