[Patents] FFII Database of European Software Patents and Press Conference

[PILCH Hartmut phm@a2e.de]

> > > In fact, if you were really serious about these issues, you would
> > > figure a way to sue EPO in some European court to force them to
> > > stop issuing patents until they can prove that they can do a good
> > > a job as required by the EPC.
> > 
> > Your strategy would take a huge effort.
> > It would be much easier to sue the EPO to force them to stop issuing
> > patents on problems whose solution consists in writing a computer program.
> > Because that is what the written law says and what it was intended to say.
> > But even that is such a huge work that we don't have the means to do it.
> > That doesn't mean we aren't serious about doing what we have the means to
> > do.
> 
> I suspect you are both wrong.  The EPO cannot be sued by any individual,
> only by a state.

That is what I meant by "huge effort" and "much easier".
For both cases, at least in Germany, we need to go to the
federal constitutional court to bring about a "norm control
procedure" (Normenkontrollverfahren).  This would have to be done
by the federal government.  So we would have to get the Ministery of
Justice onto our side.  Getting them to agree that programming freedom is
protected under Art 52.2 is easier than getting them to agree that
no patents can be granted as long as the novelty and inventivity
examinations do not work perfectly.  But both are beyond our means.

-phm