Re: [Patents] Finland Patent Office for swpats

[PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>]

> The Council handled the proposal repeated times autumn 2002, and member
> countries came to a broad consensus at the competition council meeting
> 14.11.2002 on the content of the proposal, where among other things
> program claims were accepted under certain conditions.

"member countries" = "national patent office representatives"
"under certain conditions" = "when the object is technical" = "always"

> > Även Finland
> > stödde denna kompromiss och samma positiva ställning till
> > programvarukraven togs både i statsrådets skrivelse till riksdagen
> > 5.9.2002, riksdagens ekonomiutskotts utlåtande 1.10.2002 och
> > riksdagens stora utskotts handläggning 5.11.2002.
>
> Finland too supported this compromize and the same positive stance to
> program claims was adopted both in state council [statsrådets] paper to
> the parliament [riksdagen] 5.9.2002, the economical committie
> of the parliament 1.10.2002 and the parliament large comittie procedures
> 5.11.2002. [(all these are finnish bodies)]

Did the parliament vote on any of these papers ?
It looks as if it is very urgent to work in the finnish parliament.

[ FiPTO polemics against CULT and ITRE ]:

> The general spirit of the drafts is to make higher patentability level
> of computer related inventions and by that rather limit patentation
> within this techniacl field than make sure that the different technical
> fields are equalized when it comes to conditions for patentability.

CULT says that data-processing is not a technical field.

Also concerning the ITRE proposal there can be no talk of "limiting
patentation within this technical field" (i.e. violating TRIPs).  Indeed
the technical fields are equalized.

Pekka Launis and Eero Bomanson are lying here.

> The opinions of the comitties and among others JURI are not final, and
> one does not know how Plenum will stand on the issue. The Council and
> the Parliament seems to have walked in different directions on the
> view of the comission proposal. Mediation will thus be needed between
> the Council and the Parliament, and it can take time.

Correct.

But the Council is not legitimated by anyone except for a few patent
office cadres who happen to have traditional strongholds in national
governments.

> The FiPTO has waited almost a year for the directive proposal to be
> handled. FiPTO has recieved a large amount of patent applicatins that
> among other things contains program claims. The further processing
> of these applications are risking to be delayed if the FiPTO does
> not make a decision on the praxis.

It would be quite easy for the FiPTO to delete the program claims.

> It is however already possible in Finland to enforce/apply [bringa i
> kraft] an application that contains program claims, by applying for a
> patent directly at the EPO.

The EPO patent must be transferred into a finnish patent, and finnish
courts can declare the program claims (and the patent) invalid.  It should
also be possible for the FiPTO to delete a few claims when transferring
the patent.  The correct rule would be to revoke any patent in its
entirety if it contains program claims.  The fact that it contains such
claims proves that its object is software [ as such ] .

> Appliers will be in an unequal position
> if the FiPTO does not change its praxis. There are no obstacles or
> inconviniences for FiPTO to change its praxis in a way that it
> corresponds to current EPO interpretation, neither from regulations or
> examination point of view.

Interesting, because this again demonstrates the mechanism of expansion,
which works only in one direction.  Whoever grants more creates
facts which others feel obliged to follow, even when they are not
irreversible (which property rights usually are).

> Regarding patentation of computer related inventions, the FiPTO will
> change its praxis in a way that it will follow the same praxis as
> the EPO, until the final EU directive on computer realted inventions
> is decreed.

The EPO is not an independent judicial organ under national (or european)
constitutional law.  It is a nobody whom the FiPTO is by no means obliged
to follow.

> > Pekka Launis
> > Linjedirekt?r
> >
> > Eero Bomanson
> > byr?chef
> > tfn (09) 6939 5244

It is probably useless to call these guys, but hopefully someone can
complain about their illoyal loyalist behavior and get the parliament to
handle the matter.