Indian patent practice

[Carsten Svaneborg <zqex@mpipks-dresden.mpg.de>]

Hi!

One of the argument for the directive that has been mentioned in Denmark
is that patent protection is necessary otherwise jobs will just move to India.

Clearly a bogus statement, but anyways, I checked the software patent
status in India, and the Indian patentpractice guidelines (of 2001) are
available at:  http://www.patentoffice.nic.in/ipr/patent/manual.htm

It appears to be close to the practice that should result from the
EU parlament directive text, e.g.:

2. Since the claims may be couched in terms which tend to obscure the fact 
that the invention relates to a computer program, it is always essential to 
analyse them, in the light of what is described and of the prior art, in 
order to identify the contribution to the art and hence determine whether 
this advance resides in, or necessarily includes, technological features, or 
is solely intellectual in its content.

For example, if the new feature comprises a set of instructions (program), 
which may be formulated and presented in any one of a variety of ways, 
designed to control a known computer to cause it to perform desired 
operations, the computer being suitable for the purpose without special 
adoption or modification of its hardware or organization then, no matter 
whether claimed as  a computer arranged to operate etc  or as  a method of 
operating a computer etc  .Such a subject matter is not Patentable and hence 
excluded from patentability

3. If the implementation of a new program requires internal modification to a 
computer of such a nature that it may reasonably be regarded as a new 
computer then clearly a claim to this computer is not excluded, even though 
at first sight the invention may seem to relate merely to a program and the 
purpose of modifying the computer is subsidiary to this. The modification 
must however be inventive itself; if a computer is modified in a manner which 
is the obvious way of implementing the program, then the inventive 
contribution will still reside solely in the program itself.

Maybe harmonisation of European patentpractice to the Indian software
patent practice rather than that of the EPO would have benificial
consequences. Clearly things are going very well in India.   ;*)

-- 
  Mvh. Carsten Svaneborg