Re: [Patents] cases where patents were ruled unlawfull

[PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>]

> I'm searching for informations on cases in Europe were software patents
> have been ruled unlawfull in front of national court.

Your question is imprecise, but the following could be quoted

        http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/bpatg17-suche00/
        (2000, says that claims to computer programs or disks are
         not permissible)

        http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/bgh1-bs90/
        (1990, says that an operating system contains no
         technical inventions and is subject only to copyright)

        http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/bgh-chinsz92/
        (1992, says that the object, dressed up in claim language as
         a device, is nothing but a program as such)

        http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/bgh-walzst80/
        (1980, says that an industrial process for cutting rolling rods
         under program control is nothing but a rule of calculation, if
         it conveys no new insight into the physics of the rolling rods)

        http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/bgh-dispo76/
        1976, a must read because of the important and still frequently
        quoted statements of principle

Recently again BPatG/17 (17th senate of German Federal Patent Court) has
ruled IBM's spellcheck patent to refer to a non-technical calculation
rule.  They are upholding the principles of the current law as well as
they can against attempts of the BGH, starting in 1992, to abandon these
principles in favor of catching up with the EPO.

Most other countries have not had any court rulings since the 1970s.  The
UK's highest court has also in the 1990s rejected some software patents on
the grounds of being a pure program and lacking technical character.  But
the UKPTO has been very eager to catch up with the EPO.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-12789608
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
100,000 signatures against software patents      http://www.noepatents.org/