Re: [Patents] Amendmends before 1 May 2005

[James Heald <j.heald@ucl.ac.uk>]

jacek.gancarson.eh.99 wrote:

> Is it possible to have (as a result of the software patents debate) an 
> amendmend introduced into the directive proposal:
> Members states agree that new patent revocation procedure (effected by EPO 
> and member state courts) will be established until 1 January 2006 for the 
> cases when it has been proven that the letter and  the spirit of the 
> directive and EPC had been damaged by issuing particular patent.
>
> (It would be a pilot case of implementation  of a procedure for effective 
> reversal of bad and heavy decisions of administration bodies in Europe.)
> Best regrads
> Jacek Gancarson 


You can already ask a court for patent revocation, if there are grounds 
on which the patent shouldn't have been granted (including newness, 
obviousness, patentable subject matter, person not entitled to be 
granted a patent, etc etc).

See eg

UK Patents Act, section 72 (and see also ss. 73, 74):
http://www.jenkins-ip.com/patlaw/pa77.htm#s72

EPC, Art. 138:
http://www.european-patent-office.org/legal/epc/e/ar138.html



There are enough issues we _critically_ need to get amendments passed on 
-- technicity, rejection as not an invention, program claims, 
interoperability, the logic of why s/w patents are a bad thing in the 
recitals.

We shouldn't waste our time confusing the issue on things which are 
already set out quite adequately in the EPC and national laws already.