Re: 5th Seminar of PL,DE National Groups of AIPPI

[PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>]

At

> http://www.aippi.org/reports/report_seminar_DE_PL.pdf

Stephan Freischem, Secretary of the German National Group of AIPPI,
reports:

> Marek Lazewski analysed the situation of patent protection for software
> inventions in Europe. His major point of concern was the lack of a
> concrete definition for the term "technical". He drew the conclusion
> that the U.S. approach which grants patent protection to any useful
> invention made by man that is new and inventive, independently of a
> technical character, gives much better legal certainty.

Even this gives little legal certainty, since you still have the term
"invention".  It would probably be more consistent to say "any useful
idea" or even "any idea" (since "usefulness" is difficult to assess and
hardly a problem, because people will not want patents on useless ideas).

Did Mr. Lazewski also examine whether the US approach, beside improving
"legal certainty", also improves adequacy of the results?

Some say that legislation is primarily about adequacy and only secondarily
about certainty.

Did Mr. Lazewski comment on the possibility of applying the Polish rules
of patentability, which are basically those of

        Dispositionsprogramm Decision 1976
        http://swpat.ffii.org/papri/bgh-dispo76/

i.e. the problem is solved by means of forces of nature, and these forces
of nature may not just come into play after the problem solution is
already completed (such as would be the case when you use a novel math
rule for cutting steel in a way which anybody who knows the math-rule
would easily think of, see Walzstabteilung decision of 1980) ?

It is clear that today's EPO version of "technical" creates little more
than legal uncertainty.  But does this also apply to the Polish rules?
I have examined the question on example patents, and I don't think so.
Has Mr. Lazewski examined the question?
Since he is Polish and a contributor of this list, it would be rather
inappropriate for him to just compare the EPO and USPTO approaches and
ignore the traditional approach, which is still well-established in
Polish law and at least a part of the examination practise, and pretend
that it is not an issue.

What did Mr. Lazewski really say at this seminar?

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-12789608
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
130,000 signatures against software patents      http://www.noepatents.org/