[Patents] French State secretary for Industry against SoftPat

[srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian)]

>The legal criterion of "non-obvious/inventive step" means that as soon
as there is something creative one has the right to patent.  This
produces an unbalanced situation between the (unexistent) research
effort and the monopoly granted for most software patents.

...

An interesting point, except for the needless inclusion of 'software'
at the end.  This problem affects all areas of technology being
patented (look at the golf ball patents here in the US, for example).

So why not lobby the European governments to toughen the legal criteria
of non-obvious/inventive step, for all areas of technology, while at
the same time, lobbying the governments to provide funding to the 
Patent Offices so that examiners have more time, money and resources
to apply such criteria once they have done a good prior art search?

Greg Aharonian