[Patents] Paris conference

[Jean-Paul Smets jp@smets.com]

According to the information I have, the main discussion topic of the
Paris conference was "how to reduce the costs of filing a patent in EU"
There may have been discussions related to the use of "délai de grâce"
in order to allow someone to file a patent shortly after making a
scientific publication.

Regarding software patents, I heard on one side that
    1- A workgroup will be set up to decide what to do with 52.2c
    2- The French Minister of Industry could have said (to be
confirmed)  in the ending press conference that "we should be very
careful with software patents, especially for free software"

Besides, it seems that the EU (DGXV) is planning a harmonization law
within 6 months. One should notice that the people who are the most in
favour of software patents are DG XV at EU and that the idea to change
52.2c was initially supported by them.

There has also been a few articles from lawyers and/or patent experts
who are trying to say that the freepatents.org campaign is
financed/supported by big multinational companies who want to (bla bla
bla).
    http://www.zdnet.fr/actu/logi/a0009837.html
    http://www.zdnet.fr/actu/logi/a0009838.html

Best regards,

JPS.
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