[Patents] Alert: Software Patents in Europe: Juridical Coup at the EPO

[mattias.lundstrom@digitalroute.com (Mattias Lundström)]

Seth Johnson wrote:

...

> [2] New EPO examination rules for software - 
> http://www.epo.co.at/legal/ gui_lines/f/c_iv_2.htm
...


Slightly broken link, but works without the space.
For an english version see
http://www.european-patent-office.org/legal/gui_lines/e/c_iv_2.htm


Critical extract from the new EPO guidelines:

> In the practice of examining computer-implemented inventions, however,

> it may be more appropriate for the examiner to proceed directly to the 

> questions of novelty and inventive step, without considering beforehand 

> the question of technical character. In assessing whether there is an 

> inventive step, the examiner must establish an objective technical 

> problem which has been overcome (see IV, 9.5). The solution of that problem 

> constitutes the invention's technical contribution to the art. The presence 

> of such a technical contribution establishes that the claimed 
> subject-matter 

> has a technical character and therefore is indeed an invention within the 

> meaning of Art. 52(1).


The EPO has finally gone all the way towards completely ignoring the
software exception in 52.2c.