10-09-2003, 06:30 PM
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Confirmed User
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 3,852
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OK this is from the official EU web site:
Quote:
Patentability of computerised inventions
Arlene McCARTHY (PES, North West)
Report on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions
(COM(2002) 92 ? C5-0082/2002 ? 2002/0047(COD))
Doc.: A5-0238/2003
Procedure : Codecision (1st reading)
Debate : 23.09.2003
Vote : 24.09.2003
Vote
Parliament adopted a legislative resolution on computer implemented inventions. The central question was whether the current practice of the European Patent Office issuing patents for computer implemented inventions should be formally legalised. MEPs answered this question positively by voting 361 votes in favour, 157 against and 28 abstentions on the legislative resolution. Although a number of amendments limited the allocation of patents so as to ensure that patents would not be issued for actual software.
MEPs strictly define a "computer-implemented invention as any invention in the sense of the European Patent Convention the performance of which involves the use of a computer, computer network or other programmable apparatus and having in its implementations one or more non-technical features which are realised wholly or partly by a computer program or computer programs, besides the technical features that any invention must contribute." Furthermore, article 52 of the Convention on patents states that software is not patentable.
To limit the scope of the directive, MEPs also strictly define what is meant by the "technical contribution", also called "invention", it means a contribution to the state of the art in a technical field. The technical character of the contribution is one of the four requirements for patentability. Additionally, to deserve a patent, the technical contribution has to be new, non-obvious, and susceptible of industrial application.
MEPs also insisted on defining areas excluded from the directive by saying that a computer-implemented invention should not be regarded as making a technical contribution merely because it involves the use of a computer, network or other programmable apparatus. Accordingly, inventions involving computer programs which implement business, mathematical or other methods and do not produce any technical effects beyond the normal physical interactions between a program and the computer, network or other programmable apparatus in which it is run should not be patentable. Member States will also have to ensure that patent claims granted in respect of computer-implemented inventions include only the technical contribution which justifies the patent claim.
On the used of patented techniques, MEPs say that the Member States should ensure that, wherever the use of a patented technique is needed for a significant purpose such as ensuring conversion of the conventions used in two different computer systems or networks so as to allow communication and exchange of data content between them, such use should not be considered to be a patent infringement.
Finally, MEPs also introduce a "grace period" in respect of elements of a patent application for any type of invention disclosed prior to the date of the application. It has been strongly argued that a grace period is necessary to avoid an inventor being deprived of his or her invention when it has been made public before applying for a patent, for instance in order to test its attractiveness to the market. It is maintained that this would be particularly useful for innovative SMEs and cooperation between universities and industry. However, such an innovation could not be introduced solely for patents for computer-implemented inventions without a prior study of its impact and its compatibility with the Community's international obligations under, for instance, TRIPs.
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http://www2.europarl.eu.int/omk/sipa...NAV=S#SECTION2 |
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