EPO paper on CEC/BSA proposal

[PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>]

At

        http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/epo020621.pdf

you can find an EPO paper on the CEC proposal, presented to its
Standing Advisory Committee (SACEPO) which notes:

         A strong "fundamentalist" lobby (open source community,
         Eurolinux) opposing patentprotection of software-related
         inventions would like to see this opposition reflected in the
         directive, while the patent community, in principle, welcomes
         the initiative but not without criticism as to the contents
         of the proposal, particularly the envisaged ban on computer
         program claims.

         Discussion on the proposal in the EC Council (Working Party
         on Intellectual Property) and European Parliament (Committee
         on Legal Affairs) has commenced only recently.  The EPO will
         be involved in the deliberations of the Council Working Party
         as an expert of the EU Commission.

In its short analysis, the EPO finds that the EC proposal is based
very closely on the new EPO guidelines and the EPO's practise.
However, it finds two questions worthy of further clarification:

 - meaning of restriction on claim form for enforcement of claims
 - how to distinguish technical contributions from non-technical ones

The EPO's concepts seem better than those of CEC/BSA.  In particular
they do not award any patent claim the status of an "invention" but
acknowledge that there must be a test of whether an invention is
present. 

Also, they suggest at the end to

      Make clear that mere computer implementation ofa per se
      non-technical mehtod such as business method does not involve a
      "technical contribution".

This, thought through to the end, would mean that a mere computer
implementation of a coding method (i.e. intellectal, mathematical,
information representation method) such as that in the JPEG patent
does not involve a technical contribution and is therefore not an
invention. 

Unfortunately EPO reasoning, like that of the CEC patent lawyers,
usually consists of verbal rubble which will have no consequences when
it doesn't suit the EPO and the patent community which constitutes
its advisory body SACEPO. 

I wonder why they can't give the Eurolinux Alliance a seat in SACEPO
rather than spread misleading assertions about us.  We are also a part
of the public whom the EPO is supposed to serve.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-12789608   
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
120,000 signatures against software patents      http://www.noepatents.org/