[Patents] new EPC revision conference 2002-06-10

[phm@a2e.de (PILCH Hartmut)]

Under

   http://www.european-patent-office.org/epo/pubs/oj001/08_09_01/09_3631.pdf

you can find a document which reports among others

- a new Diplomatic Conference for the Revision of the EPC will be held on
  2002-06-10 in Munich
- the number of patent applications grew by more than 30% this year,
  especially in the computing and bio areas.  The backlog also grew.
- the number of EPC member countries will soon be 30

The software dispute is not mentioned in the text and the Community Patent
is given as the chief reason for the "second basket" conference of
2002-06-10.  However it has been made clear last november by the president
of the EPO's administrative council, Roland Grossenbacher, that the
question of Art 52.2c was, according to the understanding of the EPO, only
postponed to this "second basket".  In a recent GRUR article, EPO
president Ingo Kober reasserts the hype of "the 21st century being a
century of intellectual property" and demands that all business methods
that run on a computer must be patentable.  Meanwhile there have been
signals in a different direction, and in general it seems that everybody
is currently avoiding the software subject.

--
Hartmut Pilch                                         http://phm.ffii.org/
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation      http://swpat.ffii.org/
89000 votes against software patents            http://www.noepatents.org/