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

[Jean-Marc Le Peuvédic <cocktails@freesurf.fr>]

Erik Josefsson wrote:

> 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
That would be a program that cannot run on any computer (present, past 
or conceivable in the future), since the ability to execute on a 
computer, causing electrons to move and heat to be produced, is a 
sufficient technical characteristic.
And if I invoke a computer that can understand natural language, I can 
probably patent a novel if the computer understands it.

As far as I can see, the patent office isn't very aggressive when it 
objects to patent claims. Their attitude seems to be : we warn them, but 
if they want to go ahead, we grant the patent. I think that resources 
for processing the application of so much in favor of the applicant that 
the examiner cannot spend the time he would need to argue against the 
applicant.

JM Le Peuvédic