[Patents] Re: Client Technical Effect

[phm@a2e.de (PILCH Hartmut)]

> Having operated consulting and engineering businesses for many years, I have
> on several occasions found myself in a rather awkward situation. The problem
> being that I would inadvertently allow one client or industry to become too
> large of a percentage of my total cash flow.  I learned the hard way to make
> sure that this did not happen, for when it did the "technical effect" was to
> allow those clients to own me. I found I was like a puppet, and that they
> were pulling the strings.

How did you make sure this did not happen?
You'd better not tell us here but rather draft a description and a set of
claims and submit them to the EPO.  It is clear that, according to their
standards, this is "not a business method as such but a business method
with a technical effect".

"Technical", according to current English colloquial use, means something
like "detail issue not to be decided by the managment but to be
delegated to experts".  It is a relative term.  Any issue can be
"technical" according to this understanding.

This is why it is of crucial importance to import the BGH definition of
"technical" as ".. using controllable natural forces to achieve a causally
overseeable success ..." into future legislation.  If this isn't done
soon, the term "technology", which is written in TRIPS Art 27, will lose
its delimiting character and might as well be thrown away.  In that case
it would indeed be better to go along with Greg and say that all business
methods are patentable, rather than squabble for another 10 years just in
order to find out that the directive was mumbo-jumbo and all the business
method patents are in the hands of americans who weren't deterred and knew
how to work around it.

If an EU directive needs to be fuzzy on some things, it can be fuzzy on
how to assess the "technical contribution", i.e. "core theory" or
"whollistic approach" or something in between.

--
Hartmut Pilch                                         http://phm.ffii.org/
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation      http://swpat.ffii.org/
90000 signatures against software patents       http://www.noepatents.org/