Re: Business methods patents in national European offices

[PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>]

> >Are there are national patent offices in Europe where it is possible to
> >obtain GRANT of a patent - possibly a petty patent - for what is clearly
> >a business method?  Never mind whether it is valid or not!
>
> Well, assuming one can clearly distinguish a business method from other
> technological methods (which the US courts don't think is possible, for
> example see some of the wording of the State Street decision), there
> have been a range of "business methods" granted at the national level.

Indeed business methods are a subset of applied algorithms.
If you accept that algorithms are "technology", then you will also have
business method patents.
However you can at least refuse to patent the application of known
algorithms to business, which seems to be what some patent courts
are trying to do.

> Here are some UK and DE patents (and I assume they are issued patents,
> not pre-publications - please verify).

> A mostly businessy patent would be   GB2370662 - "Tradable futures,
> options, futures on options, options on future relating to an index
> on the prices of airline passenger miles".  Whatever technology was
> thrown into the patent to get it issued, any novelty here is solely
> in the financial calculations on the futures and options.

Interesting that even Greg A. distinguishes between "technology" and
"financial calculation".

> With a bit more technology, we have   GB2368416 - "A website offering
> a free investment opportunity funded by advertising revenue".  I would
> say this is lesser of a business method patent since whatever
> inventive steps there are probably are a mix of finance and technology.

Again Greg is distinguishing.
The only thing "technical" about a way of programming a website is that
the algorithm may be shrouded in the terminology of "software
engineering", i.e. that of the universal computer, a mathematical model
designed for describing algorithms.

> At the same level of businessy would be a German patent, DE19958100
> - "Method for rapidly delivering security bonds, futures contracts,
> or orders for merchandise via computer system".
>
> Two other patents would be    GB2371719 - "Digital broadcasting
> receiving device with location based advertising"   and   GB2370946 -
> "Credit for viewers of internet or interactive television broadcasts",
> though I suspect the claims for these two patents use a lot of
> technology language.

Indeed, the degree to which the patent claims "use technology language" is
the main distinctive feature here.  And the language of the universal
computer, an equivalent of the most abstract of all logic, of which
business logic is only a sub-branch, is accepted as "technology language".

> One hopes that these applicants, if demanded of by their patent offices,
> argued that economics is a science, and the technology of economics is
> business, so that their patent claims are completely compatible with
> current patentability thinking in Europe (OK, this last clause is a bit
> of American sarcasm).

Indeed this kind of dictionary approach to "technology as applied science"
is inappropriate and not currently accepted in Europe.

> And if anyone has a problem with these patents, I will point out again
> and again and again and again that it is just as easier, and requires
> less made-up logic, to kill such patents on novelty and lack of
> inventive step grounds using the prior art.  One does not have to rely
> on the ill-defined rationale of the Pension Patent decision.

At the meeting in Amsterdam

        http://swpat.ffii.org/conferences/2002/amsterdam08/

some people reported at their attempts and failures to kill stupid EPO
patents by means of prior art, much of which happened to be supplied by
Greg Aharonian.  Greg's method, it was said, consists mainly in supplying
"tons of prior art", e.g. 500 articles from some old journal.  The problem
is that given the practially non-existent non-obviousness standards of the
EPO, you would need 1-2 documents that photographically match the patent,
not 500 that come somewhere close to it.

Given these circumstances and the current willingness of the EPO (or at
least some of its examiners) to refuse patents where the algorithm is
known and the only novelty consists in business ingenuity, the latter
option is certainly worth trying.

-- 
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/