Re: [Patents] EPC 52 Art vs. TRIPS

[PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>]

> To the readers of this mailing list, the 'clash' between TRIPS and EPC
> 52 Art. on what can be patented, particularly with respect to
> software, is probably well known.

There is no clash.
TRIPs only implies an obligation to define what is an inventionk what
is technical and what is industrial application etc, and to stick to
these terms.  Which is what Art 52 EPC does anyway.

> I would like to familiarize myself with the arguments from
> commentators with different viewpoints: in other words, I would like
> to read arguments BOTH from people who argue that TRIPS requires
> software patentability - various degrees here, obviously - AND from
> people who argue that no such obligation exists.

> My interest is not to solve the problem of software patents. Rather,
> at this point I'd just like to compile a collection of the arguments
> 'for' and 'against' with the focus on the interplay of TRIPS and EPC.

> It's very easy to find excellent articles on the 'against' side but
> considerably more difficult to find articles on the 'for' side. Could
> someone help me out here?

        http://swpat.ffii.org/analysis/trips/

If you have any good articles for an obligation to allow software patents
due to TRIPs, please show them to me.  All I have found was inferior
quality patent lawyer bullshit.  This includes the article by PA Daniele
Schiuma.  The fact that such unserious reasoning keeps being recycled in
statements from corporate patent lawyers is merely another indication of
the utter lack of arguments which these people are suffering from in their
attempts to justify the degeneration of the patent system for which they
are responsible.

-- 
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/