Re: WIPO to begin preliminary examination system that will assess compliance with "main patentability criteria"

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

> *  "A new enhanced search and examination system providing an
> international search and opinion on compliance with *main patentability
> criteria* will be available very early in the procedure;"  [emphasis
> added]

It would be fine if WIPO could act like a standardisation body (like ISO)
which systematises the set of used and possibly used patentability
criteria and thereby facilitates international patent applicatio without
forcing any country to grant patents according to any particular criteria.
Thus the EPO could examine a patent according to "WO 9000" and put it into
a category which is patentable in US but not in EU.

Unfortunately that does not seem to be what the major players at WIPO
want.  They don't want WIPO to be a standardisation body but a world
legislator.  They have not created a usable standards for patentability
but instead want to impose a treaty (SPLT) which makes universal
patentability binding for the whole world.  To this end, they have
recently again published a brochure that propagates software patents (see
http://swpat.ffii.org/news/recent/ "Wipo bangs the drum";).

It becomes clear from this that the talk about sharing workloads between
patent offices and "harmonising" etc is not serious.  WIPO currently is
not in the business of standardisation and harmonisation, but in the
business of serving as a channel for circumvention of democracy, which is
tied to national sovereignty.

Btw FFII will be spending some time in Geneva next year, see our planning

        http://swpat.ffii.org/events/2004/
        http://www.ffii.org/proj/plan/

Unfortunately I am still not aware of any WIPO schedule on SPLT.  The
patentagenda.wipo.int pages seem not to have been updated recently.

We can also talk about this right now in the IRC channel

        irc.debian.org#bxl-ffii

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-18979927
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
290,000 votes 2000 firms against software patents    http://noepatents.org/