Digital Rights Network - Software Patents

May 31 is Deadline for UK Patent Office Consultation

Mon, 10 Apr 2006 12:47:12 +0100

Groklaw highlights the UK Patent Office consultation on the 'inventive step' requirement which runs until May 31 2006. The consultation, which is open to all, centres on a number of fundamental questions pertaining to patent policy including:

Is the inventive step requirement for patentable inventions in the United Kingdom right for inventors, the public at large, and the UK economy?

Are too many "trivial patents" being granted?

Or are innovation and competitiveness best served by easy patenting with low hurdles?

EU Software Patents back to the Drawing Board

Mon, 28 Feb 2005 11:57:20 +0000

On 2 February the the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament decided to request a restart of the process on the controversial software patent directive, making formal ratification of the EU Council's political agreement of 18 May 2004 is virtually impossible.

This is excellent news. The fight is by no means over, since the Commission is likely to submit a new proposal, but with opposition gathering to patents, the move buys valuable extra time for the 'No' campaign to garner support. See here for more details on the legal technicalities.

FSF fights 'unfair' Microsoft license

Mon, 28 Feb 2005 12:05:11 +0000

Lawyers for the Free Software Foundation are calling on governments to reject Microsoft's proposed license agreement, since it excludes free/open source software by its insistence on pay-per-copy and non-disclosure of source code. Microsoft was ordered to draw up a 'reasonable and non-discriminatory' license, allowing rivals to develop software fully interoperable with their systems, following last year's anti-trust lawsuit. Now the FSF say the license is not compatible with the GPL, and hence is discriminatory. See here for more details.

FFII Conference on Regulating Knowledge Ends

Thu, 11 Nov 2004 12:23:49 +0000

The FFII conference: Regulating Knowledge: Costs, Risks and Models of Innovation has just concluded. The conference took place in Brussels with the second day being hosted by the Greens in the EU parliament.

Apart from the myriad of interesting speakers and the opportunity to meet with MEPs the event also provided an important opportunity for both sides in the debate to listen to the other, especially with the EIF running a brief evening event after the conclusion of the FFII conference on the second day.

The central issue still revolves around getting an adequate definition of the ever elusive 'technical effect'. The continuing uncertainty is obviously unsatisfactory to all parties given, on the one hand, the reliance upon it by proponents of the Council text and, on the other, the clear deficiencies of its current usage as highlighted by many participants in the conference (it is worth nothing that it was repeatedly used by council-text supporters in the EIF talk - above all by the representative of the EPO).

European Patent Office: even act of writing using pen and paper involves 'technical means'

Thu, 04 Nov 2004 20:03:05 +0000

The Board is aware that its comparatively broad interpretation of the term "invention" in Article 52(1) EPC will include activities which are so familiar that their technical character tends to be overlooked, such as the act of writing using pen and paper.