[Patents] simple questions

[Steve Probert steve.probert@patent.gov.uk]

>Adding a "computer program product" subclaim or the like doesn't make a
>patent narrower. 

I agree.  But it doesn't make it broader either.  It is, as you say, a 
subclaim.
 
>>For something to be a technical invention, it must teach a new way of
>>using natural forces, based on new empirical knowledge.
>> This is not a requirement of UK patent law so I cannot really comment.

>It is an implication of using the notion of "technicity" as a single
>coherent concept explaining the whole list of exception.

But the UK does not use any such notion in this way.

> The UK Patent Office does grant patents for computer programs,
> provided that the program is capable of producing a technical effect
> when run on a computer.  The UK Patent Office does not grant patents
> for methods of doing business whatever the technical advance may be,
> because that is what the Courts in the UK have decided.  

>The One-Click method is a method of making certain web applications
>more usable.  I wonder based on what criterion the UKPO or the UK courts 
>are able to tell whether it is a "program with a technical effect" or a
>"business method with a technical effect".

We use highly skilled patent examiners to make these decisions based on the 
individual facts of each case.  If an applicant disagrees with the Office 
decision, he has a right of appeal to the High Court, the Court of Appeal and 
ultimately the House of Lords.  The decisions of these higher courts then 
form the criteria that the examiner uses to decide the next case.

>Once you no longer require that the technical part itself must be new and
>inventive ("core theory" of the German courts), you have given up the only
>underlying criterion that is acknowledged by the courts.  Why should you
>then make a distinction between inventions whose cores are in different
>kinds of non-technical areas?  The border between program logic and
>business method is much harder to draw than that between matter and
>pure reason, and the Law contains no basis for drawing such a border. 
>Drawing such a border would in fact be an abuse of law:  you reject the
>border that is implicit in the law and create another one that is not in the
>law.

It would appear that the UK Courts have interpreted UK patent law in one way, 
and the German Courts have interpreted German patent law in another way.  
Inconvenient: I agree.  Inevitable: maybe.  A pity: perhaps.  But the earth 
continues to revolve.

Steve Probert
                                                                              
                                                                              
                                                                              
                                                                              
                                                                              
                                                                              
                                                                              
                                                                              
                                                                              
                                                                              
                                                                              
                                                                              
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