Re: [Patents] patents in europe...

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

> Could somebody shortly explain how did Europe get to this situation,
> where 30000+ patents related to software are granted - most important
> examples, some dates, court decisions...?

Isn't it all on

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

?

There was a big change at the EPO in 1986, prepared more cautiously in
1985, and patent lawyers at the time described it as giving in to the
"pressures of the IT industry", quotes are on that documentation page.
Still these patents were only hypothetical, as can be seen by the
assessment in the Betriebssystem decision of 1990: they were granted for
some alleged thing beyond the program as such and applicable to that only,
whatever it may have meant.  In 1998 the EPO went one step further by
making it clear that the computer program was the intended object of
patenting.  This coincided with a campaign, begun in 1997 by EPO &
friends, to change the law, both at the EPC and EU level.

> How many of these patents are "real inventions" (for example according
> to http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/prop/index.en.html)

Very few: only those which somehow wrongly slipped into our database.

> And was this paper somehow sent to EU institutions?

They are all quite well aware of it.

But they believe they must obey the big industry associations and patent
offices.  This obedience seems to be a habit.  Note also how the Utility
Model directive proposal was withdrawn just because the patent lawyer
committees of a few of these associations reacted negatively.  It is not
difficult for the EU to withdraw a directive project, if the right people
are against it.  Reasoning plays no big role here.  Discussions are
virtual.  Everybody knew that swpat are bad and this proposal is crookery,
but nobody had the guts to say a word.  E.g. commissioner Liikanen knew
it, but if he had said something, he would have been the "opensource
believer" and politically isolated, which might have impeded his career.
So he went along singing the song about the emperor's clothes.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-12789608
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
145,000 votes 400 firms against software patents     http://noepatents.org/