Re: [Patents] Re: [contacts] Re: proposition d'action eu ropéenn e : financement d'un cabinet de lobbyingprofe ssionnel

[Erik Josefsson <ehj@cleosan.com>]

Jean-Marc Le Peuvédic wrote:

> One of the easiest ways to reach a wrong interpretation is to wrongly 
> understand the word invention. For most of us, invention means 
> "patentable subject matter" (implies that it doesn't fall in one of the 
> categories excluded from patentable subject matter, like business 
> methods). For the EPO it only means that the claims have technical 
> characteristics, which is always, or can always be, the case since they 
> would even accept "pen and paper"-implemented inventions as far as 
> business methods are concerned.

Indeed this is said quite clearly in T 1173/97:

"programs for computers must be considered as patentable inventions when 
they have a technical character."

"A "program as such" (excluded from patentability) would therefore in 
fact be a non-technical program."

http://legal.european-patent-office.org/dg3/pdf/t971173ep1.pdf

//Erik