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Eurolinux Petition FFII EuroLinux any browser MLHT

[translatable text] [howto translate]

 

News on Computer Law in Europe and Germany

In a circular to its clients, Betten & Resch, leading software patentability activist patent lawyers in Munich, inform their clients: the EPO has decided that media claims and Internet claims admissible. In the long run, the EPO will grant data structure claims. In view of the practice of the last two to five years it can be said that, in principle, a patent will be granted for all computer programs (including business methods) which are new and inventive.

 

The Technical Board of Appeal 3.5.1 of the European Patent Office (EPO) has decided that, in principle, media claims (covering the computer program on a storage medium ...) and Internet claims (covering the transmission or electronic distribution of the computer program) are admissible. ...

According to the US-CAFC ("In re Lowry") and the Guidelines of the Japanese and the Korean Patent Offices, data structures are protectable by a patent claim. This question has not yet been decided by the Technical Boards of Appeal of the EPO. In view of the EPO decision "BBC / Colour Television Signal" we are, however, quite confident that the EPO will grant, in the long run, such claims as well.

In view of the practice of the last two to five years it can be said that, in principle, a patent will be granted for all computer programs (including business methods) which are new and inventive. This is at least valid for the EPO and the German Patent and Trademark Office, but not yet for the UK Patent Office. In connection with this we refer to the "SOHEI" case (EP 209907 for a computer managment system), and EP patents for a trade warrant system (EP 762304), a stateless shopping cart for the web (EP 784279), and an interactive information selection apparatus (for selecting the items for a meal) (EP 756731). Thus the practice of the EPO seems to be quite similar to that of the USPTO, even if the wording of the claims differs somewhat.

In this connection it may be interesting to know that in 1997 the number of European patent applications in the field of data processing, most of them relating to computer programs, had the highest growth of 28% compared with 1996, and that the EPO has started to establish a second division of examiners dealing with software applications.

In General the practise of the German PTO is quite similar to that of the EPO. The UNION Round Table Convference on "Patenting of Computer Software" in December 1997 obviously had a good impact not only on the European, but also on the German situation. In 1998 the 17th Senate of the German Patents Court, who had a rather restrictive practice as to patenting of computer programs in the past, surprisingly admitted in 1998 in two cases the appeal on points of law to the German Federal Supreme Court (BGH). Such an admission had been denied all the years before. This will give the BGH the possibility to consider the discussion of the last years and to bring its case law of 1991/1992 in line with that of the Technical Boards of Appeal of the EPO.

One judge of the FSC, who is the expert in the FSC for computer programs, has just published an article showing his "personal opinion", according to which, in principle, computer programs should be considered technical. However only the conversion of the logical concept into the operation of the computer or the realization of the logical concept (program) by the computer, but not the logical concept itself should be protected by patents. This approach seems to be quite similar to what is known as "technical application" of the computer program in the USA.

The latest state of the discussion on the amendment of the European Patent Convention (EPC) is that there seems to be a great consensus within the deciding bodies of the EPO and the European Commission that Art 52(2) and (3) EPC (including the exclusion of computer programs as such) should be cancelled and that Art. 52(1) EPC should be brought in line with Art 27(1) TRIPS Agreement. Although such an amendment could take years, the efforts towards such an amendment may have an impact on the general practice of the EPO so that the exclusion of computer programs as such from patentability in Art. 52(2) EPC will be interpreted in a very narrow way.


http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/papri/bettenresch9901en.html
2000-07-26 PILCH Hartmut
  
 
[ Hardcopy Collection | Automatische Absatzsteuerung (1999) | BGH-Urteil Seitenpuffer 1992 | BGH bestätigt ein vom BPatG als untechnisch betrachtetes Patent auf ABS-Steuerung | BGH-Urteil Chinesische Schriftzeichen 1992 | Esslinger & Betten 2000: Patentschutz im Internet | Betten 1995: Patentschutz von Computerprogrammen | Raubenheimer 1994: Die jüngere BGH-Rechtsprechung zum Softwareschutz nach Patentrecht | Mellulis 1998: Zur Patentierbarkeit von Programmen fuer DV-Anlagen | Tauchert 1999: Zur Patentierbarkeit von Programmen für DV-Anlagen | Schmidtchen 1999: Zur Patentfähigkeit und Patentwürdigkeit von Computerprogrammen und von programmbezogenen Lehren | Tauchert 1999: Zur Patentierbarkeit von Programmen fuer DV-Anlagen | EPO decision T 6/83 for IBM interprogram communication system | EPO decision T 208/84 for Vicom | EPO decision T 22/85 against IBM archival system | EPO decision T 115/85 for IBM visualisation system | EPO decision T 163/85 for BBC color tv signal system | EPO T 26/86 for Koch and Sterzel X-ray apparatus | EPO decision T 110/90 for IBM printer control markup | EP decision T 164/92 on Bosch | EPO decision T 769/92 for Sohei file shuffling system | EPO decision T 410/96 on IBM document markup | EPO decision T 935/97 for IBM program product | EPA-Entscheidung T 1173/97: IBM Programmprodukt | Metzger & Jäger 1999: Open Source Software und deutsches Urheberrecht | Lester C. Thurow 1997: Needed: A New System of Intellectual Property Rights | Bernhard Müller kündigt EG-Richtlinie an | Schiuma 2000: TRIPS and Exclusion of Software "as Such" from Patentability | News on Computer Law in Europe and Germany | Patent Protection for Modern Technologies | Le recours au droit de la propriété industrielle | Anne Fitzgerald 1994: Patentability of Software in Australia - CCom v Jiejing | Natalie Stoianoff 1999: Patenting Computer Software - An Australian Perspective | Christopher Wood 1998: Patents in Software - Commercially Useful is Not Enough | The Patentability of Software-related Inventions in the United States | Peter Rott: Zur Anpassung des Indonesischen Patentrechts an das TRIPS-Abkommen | US-Urteil Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit 1998-07-23: Algorithmen und Geschäftsmethoden patentierbar | Gespräch Blasum-Heitto über EU-Fragebögen | Patenting Computer Software in Europe - the Future commission's initiative | Technical board of Appeal on biotech case | Folgedokument zum Grünbuch | Pamela Samuelson 1989: Survey among IP experts and software engineers on Look and Feel Copyright | Pamela Samuelson 1989: Survey on the Patent/Copyright Interface for Computer Programs | Pamela Samuelson 1990: Should Program Algorithms be Patentable? | Official Journal | Columbia Law Review | Proceedings of the Union Round Table Conference 1997 | EPO in 1999-03 convened session about EPC change ]