Re: [Patents] The Importance of Potential (continued)

[Jonas Maebe <jonas.maebe@ugent.be>]

On 27 mrt 2004, at 18:42, Christian Beauprez wrote:

> Indeed you are quite right to say that a technical effect maybe 
> realised by
> the software. But does this make it an invention under invention law 
> e.g. a
> monopoly to produce based on the "invention"?
>
> If we patented this we would be patenting an invention based on a broad
> definition of "automated chemical laboraratory whereby technical 
> effect is
> realised by software" as opposed to protecting the code of the software
> innovation itself.

I think what Hartmut meant is simply that new technical processes are 
also patentable, even if they are carried out using known technical 
means. Whether you use software or something else to control this new 
technical process is irrelevant, as always.

If you control it using software, then you have an example 
"computer-implemented invention" according to the definition of the 
European Parliament.

> When we get into this assumption the problem of the washing machine
> re-emerges.

The problem of the washing machine is a little different from how you 
interpreted it. It's not that we are against new inventions like 
finding a new washing process that gets stains better out of the 
laundry, even if it does this using a computer program and if this 
particular new program is the only difference between a new and an old 
washing machine (because the invention is not the new program, but the 
new washing process). You can find more about this at 
<http://www.elis.ugent.be/~jmaebe/swpat/cii.html#cii>.

The washing machine picture comes from the fact that before the vote in 
the EP, the proponents of software patents always claimed that the 
directive was about washing machines and the like, and not about "pure 
software". With our graphic, we simply wanted to show that the only 
logical interpretation of "computer-implemented invention" cannot refer 
to a washing machine. After all new, a washing process does not get 
implemented in a computer, but in a washing machine.

Only its description can possibly be interpreted by a computer if you 
put it in the right form. But then again, it can also be interpreted by 
a human in the right form, and then he can push the right buttons 
instead of using a computer to do that. That doesn't make the new 
washing process a "human-implemented invention" however, does it?


Jonas