UK gov applying for business method patents

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

Here's another example of the kinds of patents which McCarthy's friend
want to be grantable under the directive.  Under some versions of the
proposal, such as that of the Council, it may be necessary to "throw
technology into the claims to overcome bogus semantic tests", under
others, such as that of CEC & McCarthy, even that is not necessary.

I'd say the UK government's patent application is more credible than the
UK government's statements about wanting to exclude patentability of
certain ideas.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 16:21:10 -0400 (EDT)
From: Gregory Aharonian <srctran@world.std.com>
To: epo@mlist.austria.eu.net
Subject: Is UK government for or against business method patents?



    Is the UK government for or against business method patents?  I have
seen a few statements from parts of the UK government that are against
business method patents.  Then I see the following article in the 5 April
issue of New Scientist, page 17:

        Britain's Ministry of Defense wants to help investors regain
        confidence in stock market shares.  In recently filed patents,
        (GB 2377040) the MoD says current prediction methods would
        do better if they accurately logged short term market
        fluctuations.  The MoD describes a daily scoring system,
        rewarding or penalizing shares every time their value shifts
        above or below certain preset thresholds.

        From a share's score it is then possible to predict its
        long-term performance with an accuracy depedent on how large
        the threshold range is.  Then, if brokers know how much risk
        their investors want to take, they can set this one parameter
        to see what shares score best at that level of risk.  "The
        probablity of large negative fluctuations is signficantly
        reduced.", says the MoD.

This is a pure business method patent (whatever technology is thrown into
the claims to overcome the bogus semantic test of "technical").  So if
the UK Patent Office is going to outright reject such patent applications,
why is the UK Ministry of Defense wasting taxpayers' monies filing such
applications.  Unless business method patents are allowed.  Or not.

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