From phm@a2e.de  Fri Sep 14 09:03:16 2001
From: phm@a2e.de (PILCH Hartmut)
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 10:03:16 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: [Patents] More texts on swpat.ffii.org
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.33.0109141003070.1640-100000@mulix.oas.a2e.de>

Under

        http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/papri/epo-gl78/

you now find excerpts from the EPO guidelines of 1978 concerning Art 52
EPC in both English and German.  We are still looking for the French
version.

These guidelines remove all the ambiguity that people have been trying
hard to interpret into the terms "programs for computers" in 52(2) and "as
such" in 52(3).

Meanwhile in a GRUR article from this summer

	http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/papri/grur-koenig01/

a patent lawyer also lucidly analyses the "as such" sophistry of the EPO
and many of his colleagues and explains that Art 52 unambiguously denies
the patentability of all programs for computers.  He quotes a DIN standard
definition of that term which, similar to the definition of EPO 1978,
includes everything from the algorithm to the process running on the
computer, and explains that in the case of Art 52 such external
definitions should be used and it is not permissible to redefine the terms
in a way that suits any particular purpose, such as allowing software
patents.  However Koenig points out that "combination inventions", where
software forms only a part of the whole, can be patented, and that this
avenue opens almost the same flexibility to patent offices that their
ill-guided attempt of de-clarifying the law has opened them, only in a
conceptually more sound way.

Meanwhile under

	http://swpat.ffii.org/penmi/linuxtag-2001/xuan/

you can find documents of a lecture given by Xuan Baldauf at our swpat
seminar on Linuxtag 2001, including an attempt to show by visualisation
why the "wholistic approach" to examining the technical character of a
patent application is inconsistent and therefore probably illegal, while
only the "differential approach" (also called "core theory": demanding
that the new part be technical and vice versa) makes sense.  Note that the
EPO guidelines of 1978 also demand the differential approach:  they
explicitely exhort the examiner to "ignore the claim wording".

Good reading!

--
Hartmut Pilch                                           http://phm.ffii.org/
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation	      http://swpat.ffii.org/
85000 signatures against software patents         http://www.noepatents.org/








