Re: [Patents] "person skilled in the art"

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

> I found that EPO can consider a team of programmers "a person skilled in 
> the art":
> 
>     "For the software implementation of an information system, normally
>     a software project team is responsible, typically consisting of
>     programmers. The Board thus considers appropriate to define, in the
>     present case, the relevant "person skilled in the art" within the
>     meaning of Article 56 EPC as such a software project team."
> 
>     http://legal.european-patent-office.org/dg3/pdf/t030172eu1.pdf
 
That just means that the prior art to consider during the non-obviousness
test can be dispersed among several different sub-fields of data
processing, and the counter-argument that "the person skilled in the art
wouldn't combine document A with document B, because A and B are in
different fields" isn't admitted.  If by uncreatively combining A and B
the fictitious "person skilled in the art" arrives at claimed "invention"  
C, there is no "inventive step", otherwise there is one.

It is of course outrageous under Art 52 to view data processing as a field
in which inventions in the sense of patent law can be made.  But the EPO
here has decided in 1986, with administrative backing from the patent
office managment and the later the administrative council (the clueless
people sitting on the EU Council working party), that not the law but the 
interpretation of the TBA from the Vicom case shall be authoritative.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-18979927
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
330,000 votes 3000 firms against software patents    http://noepatents.org/