[Patents] Who, how and when?

[PILCH Hartmut phm@a2e.de]

> >   * EU-Directive "before summer", probably beginning of July
> >   * later discussion in European council, pass through European parlament
> >     may take somewhere from 3 months to 10 years 

"European Council" is wrong, should be corrected to "council workgroup".
This is a group of patent-referents of national government ministeris. In
Germany there is one from the M o Economics (bmwi.bund.de) and one from
the M o Justice (bmj.bund.de).

> >   * November: change of European Patent Convention by intergovernmental
> >     conference 
> 
> Thank you.
> I was wondering, how can people from countries that are not
> (yet?) part of EU help?

The European Patent Convention has quite a few non-EU member states. Their
governments can help.

Americans and others can help by urging their governments to make it clear
that any country is free to interpret the abstract principles of TRIPS Art
that "patents shall be availabele in all fields of technology" if they are
"... capable of industrial application" in a narrow sense that excludes
software and business methods, as long as this interpretation is in itselv
consistent.

The patent lobbyists are trying to make it seem as if Europe was forced to
patent software just in order to comply with TRIPS and get rid of American
pressure.  They are trying to make the US look like a big bully, and US
citiziens should not let them get away with that.  It should be made clear
that there is an international climate which is critical of software
patents and that there is no legal obligation to have them.

-phm