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Preparation of the Competitiveness Council of Ministers, Brussels, 29/30 May
2008
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| Ministers will discuss a progress report on this issue prepared by the
| Slovenian Presidency. Commissioner McCreevy will encourage Member States to
| continue to work constructively in this process.
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http://7thspace.com/headlines/282551/preparation_of_the_competitiveness_council_of_ministers_brussels_2930_may_2008.html
Enough with the BS already. See reference at the bottom.
Not All Patents Created Equal, Technology Policy Experts Say
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| The efficacy of the patent system is not equivalent across all industries,
| and appears to be particularly ineffective in software, said a panel at the
| Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference held at Yale University last week.
|
| [...]
|
| A lot of unpatented prior art, which does not make it into considerations at
| the patent and trademark office, said Berger, could add to this problem. She
| added that EFF is working with open source company Mozilla to crease a
| wiki-style platform of prior art in software they hope can be eventually used
| by patent examiners.
|
| Efforts have failed so far in terms of patent reform, she said, citing the
| status of the Patent Reform Act as “dead in the water” in the US Congress for
| the time being, and asking what people interested in technology policy might
| do about this problem.
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http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=1065
Court revokes Aerotel's landmark patent
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| Patent attorneys, lawyers, judges and businesses have often had trouble
| determining exactly what inventions are and are not eligible for patent
| protection, particularly where the invention involves software. A 2006 ruling
| in the Court of Appeal was designed to settle the issue by clarifying the
| rules that patent examiners and judges should apply to assess whether
| inventions are for patentable subject matter.
|
| [...]
|
| "The election to solicit pre-pay clientele is unarguably a 'business
| method'," wrote Judge Fysh. "The consequence in 'computer terms' forms no
| part of the invention; it is done with appropriate software. Moreover, even
| if it did form part of the invention, it would therefore only involve the
| construction of appropriate computer programs and would also be excluded from
| patentability."
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http://www.out-law.com/default.aspx?page=9150
Recent:
[ffii] McCreevy wants to legalise Software Patents via a US-EU patent treaty
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| 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.
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http://lwn.net/Articles/282000/
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