[Patents] Fwd: Onderhoud met Dumortier...

[Nicolas Pettiaux nicolas.pettiaux@linuxbe.org]

----------  Message r=E9achemin=E9  ----------
Subject: Onderhoud met Dumortier...
Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2000 12:32:34 +0100 (CET)
From: Herman Bruyninckx <Herman.Bruyninckx@mech.kuleuven.ac.be>
To: Nicolas Pettiaux <nicolas.pettiaux@linuxbe.org>,
 peter@mind.be


I've had an interesting meeting with Jos Dumortier (head of the
 Interdisciplinary Centre for Law and Information Technology,=20

(from the KUL, Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven, the largest and oldest=20
Belgian university, note from NP)

 <http://www.law.kuleuven.ac.be/icri/>.

This is a summary:

- It is a wide spread misunderstanding that software is not patentable
  in the _current_ European legal system: the well-known clause that
  excludes software from patentability in the patent laws seems to
  have been interpreted many times (by courts) already as being a
  ``mistake'' and is not considered to be valid in practice.
- The European Union is going to install a separate patent judge, in
  order to separate the powers that are now all in the EPO.
- There are three groups of decision takers to influence:
  - European commission
  - European Parliament
  - national delegates
- The ``decision'' to be taken on december 15th is not more but a
  _starting point_ for a much longer procedure in the European
  parliament.
- _The_ way to go is not to advocate a yes/no law as far as patents
  are concerned (this has _no_ change of being accepted because it
  puts the whole patent system in doubt), but to make a strong list of
  ``considerations'': enumerate cases in which patents are/should
  definitely not be granted, with an extensive and rational
  motivation.
  These considerations will be _very_ influential in court cases,
  because any current and future law will be very open to
  interpretation. It is also very important to list patents were the
  ``non-obviousness''-test has failed miserably. Anyway: defining
  ``non-obviousness'' is the key to the patent right, and this is a
  very hard thing to do properly...
- Jos Dumortier is interested in giving advice or read through all
  legal documents we would produce in our quest.

Best regards,

Herman

PS This mail has been sent to
   Nicolas Pettiaux (of linuxbe.org), and
   Peter Vandenabeele (of mind.be).

--
Herman.Bruyninckx@mech.kuleuven.ac.be (Ph.D.)    Fax: +32-(0)16-32 29 87
Dept. Mechanical Eng., Div. PMA, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

-------------------------------------------------------

--=20
Nicolas Pettiaux
Avenue du P=E9rou 29 - B-1000 Bruxelles
Email: nicolas.pettiaux@linuxbe.org