[Patents] Puppet Frits Bolkestein on SWPAT

[phm@a2e.de (PILCH Hartmut)]

Under

> <http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&;
> doc=SPEECH/01/247|0|RAPID&lg=EN>

the Commissioner for the Internal Market says:

> Recently, considerable debate has taken place in Europe about the
> patentability of software-related inventions. Some consider that
> patents in this field tend to stimulate innovation. Others believe
> that patents will, on the contrary, stifle fair competition and hinder
> innovation. In the Commission we are currently considering what is the
> best approach to follow. We are studying the results of a public
> consultation we launched on the subject. It is clear from the replies
> we have received that there is no support for moving to a very wide
> protection extending, for example to business methods, which is the

That is not true.  Quite a few submittants, especially patent lawyers
writing in the name of large associations and corporations, have
explicitely opted for unlimited patentability of anything implemented in
software.

In practise and even in at least part of the theory
(http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/papri/jwip-schar98/ and base proposal
of July 2000) the EPO is already pursuing this line and there is no
significant difference to the USPTO.  Any remaining difference is an
incidental relict of the past that will pass away as time goes by, if the
line of the EPO is confirmed and codified, as Frits Bolkestein
seems to be proposing below.

What the EPO calls "technical character" today is nothing more than the
"Freeman-Walter-Abele test" of the USPTO.  Mark Schar (EPO judge, see
above) argued in 1998 that any "practical and repeatable solution" is
"technical".

> approach which the US applies. Any action at EU level would therefore
> be limited to harmonising and codifying the existing practice of
> Member States and of the European Patent Office.

The 1300 submissions to the consultation that implicitely or explicitely
opposed the practise of the EPO and demanded that no swpat be issued, are
simply ignored by Bolkestein.  Again he or his DGIM ghostwriter is
building up a virtual debate between positions that do not exist or have
no practical relevance.  The goal and method of the DGIM has not changed
since the Greenbook of 1997.  None of them thinks of himself as an
originator of law.  All of them are part of a patent establishment in
which the EPO has the greatest weight and is therefore the de-facto
originator of law.

The current discussion reminds me of Zhao Gao.  This powerful Chinese
Eunuch of 200 BC introduced a stag (deer) to the young emperor and called
it a horse.  All the people at the imperial court followed suit and also
called the stag a "horse".  From that moment it was clear who wielded the
real power in the state.  Only a few weeks later, the young emperor was
murdered by Zhao Gao.

If the EPO can effectively get away with the claim that they have not
violated the EPC by granting patents on rules of organisation and
calculation, computer programs and other kinds of non-technical items,
then everybody will finally know that Bolkestein is a puppet.

--
Hartmut Pilch                                      http://phm.ffii.org/
Pflege statt Pluenderung der Informationsallmende: http://www.ffii.org/
Schutz der Innovation vor der Patentinflation:   http://swpat.ffii.org/
78600 Unterschriften gegen Logikpatente: http://petition.eurolinux.org/