From phm@a2e.de Sun, 29 Aug 1999 13:54:41 +0200 (CEST)
Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 13:54:41 +0200 (CEST)
From: PILCH Hartmut phm@a2e.de
Subject: [Patents] Re: Hypothetical Example (Nick Fleming)

> > not only that: patent licenses are usually granted on an exclusive basis
> > to the party that can generate the greatest revenue from the patent and
> > will therefore pay the highest license sum.  So, if you want to solve your
> > simple database problem, be prepared to outbid Microsoft.
> 
> Is this true - can you back up this claim with hard evidence ? Apparently the
> patent laws are slightly different all over Europe, which is why the green paper
> was introduced. Im sure that Patents are not granted on this basis in England !
> (I havent checked this yet - Im waiting for a reply from the UK Patent office.)

A patent owner, except in a few cases such as AIDS medicine and the like,
is free to do whatever he wants with a license.  Granting exclusive
licenses is very commonplace, I think also in Britain.  But you are right,
examples are needed.

 
> > Nobody is talking about harmonisation with Japan and the US, only about
> > harmonisation among the European patent systems. 
> 
> Yes, they are !. I refer you to John Moggs (Director General (DG XV)
> European Commission, Speech from the 1998 Conference on Software
> Patents 'The Importance Of Software Patents To The European Community' :

Yes I read that before, at http://www.patent.gov.uk/softpat/en, I think.
 
> "Globalisation of the markets is an inevitable issue.
> Furthermore, the value of what is produced lies more in the intangible
> investment component. In global markets, the level playing field is essential.
> In the area of computer software, it is necessary to ensure that the laws
> in Europe are not too different from what they are in US and Japan. Particularly
> true in the context of the internet, where software can be downloaded through networks
> from anywhere in the world. Same level of protection is needed."

This is of course a personal opinion of John Moggs which lies beside the
"harmonisation" goal that the EU commission has fixed for itself, which
consists in bringing more clarity into the practise of granting software
patents, so that the poor little guys from the SMEs can get software
patents more easily, which nowadays, due to a "complicated" situation,
only a few big companies are clever enough to get.

Both "harmonisation" issues are BS, but the one of John Moggs is not even
on the official agenda.

> It is also most important not to use this discussion area to insult people.

Right.  It makes a bad impression and leads people to doubt whether the
arguments are really on our side.

> I believe the people who work in the patent offices are not to blame, and
> may actually be our best allies, all things considered. As to their language,
> remember that every profession has its own jargon.

The speech of John Moggs contains quite a lot of the kind of "wodden
language" I meant.  The EU greenbook even more.  One characteristic of
this language is that it's mostly copied from somewhere.  You will find
the same formulas in many texts.  EU officials repeat them without showing
any personal thinking, thus protecting themselves against attack.  This is
what makes it so similar to the soviet language.

But angrily pointing this out doesn't help very much.  It would be better
to exploit it in a humurous way somehow.

Btw, I don't think we have many allies among the patent office people. But
they may be easier to persuade than patent lawyers and patent department
heads.  At the London conference the heads of the European and British
patent offices seem more cautious and balanced in their argumentation than
Moggs and Koerber (Siemens patent department head).  A spokesman of the
EPO even told me, that he believed software patents would do more harm
than good and were based on some old thinking.  Usually, he sighed, laws
are 20 years out of sync with the technical reality they are made for.

But I am sure the same spokesman would not have said this at the London
conference.  The utmost he might have done is express himself in the way
Kober (EPO head) did.

The German Justice Ministery official we are corresponding with so far hid
himself behind the officially approved wooden language.  I wonder if we
can get close enough in touch to lure him out from behind there. 

-phm





