EU patent board to decide whether to allow software patents (ars technica) [LWN.net]

Ars technica reports on an upcoming decision affecting the patentability of software in the European Union. "Although EU patent law expressly excludes patenting software as such, it does allow patents to be granted for computer-implemented inventions. There are, however, many unanswered questions about the distinction between software methods and computer-implemented inventions. In practice, the EPO has historically granted patent applications in some cases for software methods that are viewed as legitimate technical innovations rather than business innovations. The EPO illustrates the difference by saying that a patent on a software method for improving signal strength between mobile phones is likely to be valid, but a patent on Internet auction systems is probably not."

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EPO (not EU) has questions refererred on software patents, may not answer!

Posted Oct 30, 2008 23:20 UTC (Thu) by k3ninho (subscriber, #50375) [Link]

This potentially exciting state of affairs is half reported by a website that read another site's rambling on the subject (I respect Ars Technica, but their source is The Register). The Ars article confuses the European Union with the European Patent Office, two different things, ruled by different treaties and having different nations as members. And it's bizarre that The Reg's article is actually written by OUT-LAW.COM, who provide reasonably good reviews of Intellectual Property issues, so I'm puzzled how the normally-good Ars Technica got confounded.

But the best source in my book is the IPKat weblog, whose summaries and discussion are good [1,2]. EPO President Brimelow's referral is a reflection of UK case law. In Aerotel [3], Lord Justice Jacob (most senior rank of UK Judge) asked the EPO to clarify its position on patenting software. The second link from the IPKat tells us that an Enlarged Board is at its own discretion able to ignore the referred questions because EPO practice in granting patents for computer-implemented inventions hasn't been inconsistent.

K3n.

[1] http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2008/10/epo-enlarged-board-r...
[2] http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2008/10/more-on-that-referra...
[3] http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2006/1371.html

EU patent board to decide whether to allow software patents (ars technica)

Posted Oct 31, 2008 12:56 UTC (Fri) by smorovic (subscriber, #52892) [Link]

It has to be said that "computer-implemented inventions" also cover patenting protocols, and EPO grants such patents.