Yes, it is a loaded question, but what is the general consensus towards the final wording of the patent law and whether software is effectively disqualified.
I also noted that some of the wording in the law may effectively make algorithms also not patentable -- such as the MP3 algorithm. Is this way off base, or has Franhaufer just lost their source of income?
Software is not effectively disqualified in theory. One of the major victories in the vote was that software is not patenteable by definition.
In practice, the patent conditions in article 2 (see http://lwn.net/Articles/50722/) put aside any software patent that is not for industrial purposes (in the strict sense of "automated production of material goods") and which is not technical ("The use of natural forces to control physical effects beyond the digital representation of information belongs to a technical field. The processing, handling, and presentation of information do not belong to a technical field, even where technical devices are employed for such purposes.")
It's possible that it affects algorithms. But I don't know how to legally separate an alogrithm from a program.
A Seg, 2003-09-29 às 10:07, edA-qa mort-ora-y escreveu:
Yes, it is a loaded question, but what is the general consensus towards the final wording of the patent law and whether software is effectively disqualified.
I also noted that some of the wording in the law may effectively make algorithms also not patentable -- such as the MP3 algorithm. Is this way off base, or has Franhaufer just lost their source of income?
On Mon, Sep 29, 2003 at 11:07:00AM +0200, edA-qa mort-ora-y wrote:
Yes, it is a loaded question, but what is the general consensus towards the final wording of the patent law and whether software is effectively disqualified.
Please note that there is no "final" wording of the "law" yet. The vote in the European parliament was about a proposed directive. That proposed directive is not active yet, so it still can be changed.
A Seg, 2003-09-29 às 10:36, Bernhard Reiter escreveu:
On Mon, Sep 29, 2003 at 11:07:00AM +0200, edA-qa mort-ora-y wrote:
Yes, it is a loaded question, but what is the general consensus towards the final wording of the patent law and whether software is effectively disqualified.
Please note that there is no "final" wording of the "law" yet. The vote in the European parliament was about a proposed directive. That proposed directive is not active yet, so it still can be changed.
It's a bit worst than that. This was the first reading. Before the second reading, the europarl must agree with the council of europe and the comission on the final result. Unless we are extremely effective at the national level at this moment, all the victories we had until now can be undone.
On Mon, 29 Sep 2003, João Miguel Neves wrote:
Please note that there is no "final" wording of the "law" yet. The vote in the European parliament was about a proposed directive. That proposed directive is not active yet, so it still can be changed.
It's a bit worst than that. This was the first reading. Before the second reading, the europarl must agree with the council of europe and the comission on the final result.
No, the europarl does not have to finally agree with the council and there is no requirement ot have an agreement before the 2nd reading.
If the council and the europarl find no agreement, this directive is rejected. It may mean that, like commissioner Bolkenstein warned the democratic forum, the process may bedone without it's democratic invervention if it does not want to take part in it.
But the europarl gave a strong signal that it wants to take part in it - with it's final vote to adopt the text it amended. It needed to do more fixes to the text than the commissioner expected but he should be happy with the result and be thankful that the EP fixed the text to actually do what the commissioner wanted.
... Unless we are extremely effective atthe national level at this moment, all the victories we had until now can be undone.
Exactly, we have to inform the press about this good and strong signal of the Europarl, describing that it really achives what the commissioner said to want and that the council should not destroy it.
I think it would be good to make a good proposal what the council should fix and pass it to the national members of parliament, after all they are the people which represent us(the constituents, which are their highest priority) and only they can put pressure on the goverment which can put pressure on the ministers in the council ulitmatively.
Bernhard PS: The press of course also plays a role with regard to the members of the national parliaments, because something which is not publically discussed is maybe not of much interest to the members of parliaments so it might be better to have some publicity behind the talks.
On Mon, 29 Sep 2003, edA-qa mort-ora-y wrote:
Yes, it is a loaded question, but what is the general consensus towards the final wording of the patent law and whether software is effectively disqualified.
I also noted that some of the wording in the law may effectively make algorithms also not patentable -- such as the MP3 algorithm. Is this way off base, or has Franhaufer just lost their source of income?
No, they have lost nothing, nothing is finally decided yet. We are at a point in an EU law making process which is called co-decision procedure which could go on for quite some time and involve quite some steps before a final decision is reached.
The most exact descripton I've read so far is the Co-decision Guide of the Council: http://ue.eu.int/codec/en/EN.pdf
It's found on the codecision info/status page of the council: http://ue.eu.int/codec/en/
Which I linked from a greater info page on the law procedure: http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/EULawMakingProcess -> It also contains shorter explanations but they are less correct.
Right now, we've just passed the 1st reading in the European parliament in this process. It was an important step but nothing which is not reversible by the council.
Even if a text like the current one would be put into law, Fraunhofer would not loose it's source of income because a) it should have other sources of income as well and b) it currently depends on the interpretation of the European Patent Convention by the national courts if somebody has to pay a license fee. If they would interpret it in a way which says that an algorithm is not patentable, they would not have got much money from patent licenses in this country. And all thus EU stuff does also not directly affect the money which they get from US and Japanese patents.
I think the council has a very strange role now:
The group in the council prepares it's position on this law is some intellectual property group which is composed from delegations from all the national patent offices.
This group already had the law proposal in it's hands, the FFII has a page which details what it did:
http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/dkpto0209/
So it looks to me that this "EU-PTO" group is even more dangerous with regard to holes on this directive because they obvoiusly(logically) want to give all the power to the patent offices, as it can be interpreted from the changes described at the FFII page above.
It can be guessed that this group will propose some changes which introduce some holes into the proposal, probably more or less along the lines what JURI voted to have ammended in June, which would be really bad, but what else can we expect from a closed council group of patent office delegations?
I think we must point out that what they will propose will very likely be a very biased statement towards unlimited patentability (hidden) or at least give the patent offices the power to interpret the law like some patent offices, at least the EPO, has done so far.
To me this looks like to ask the people which are known to change their interpretation of the current legal framework(the EPC) how they like and make more money from it(the EPO makes good revenue!) by granting more patents it if they are happy with a new law which restricts their ability to interpret it like they did and loose much revenue.
I hope the position of the Council, at least in it's second reading, will not be determined by this group(but ATM, it seems to be) or a text which reduces the income of the patent offices will not be adopted.
This is purely wishful thinking (*dreaming again....*) but maybe with good work on the national press and national parliaments, the national ministers which should have the final say in the council would have their own opinion...
Bernhard
Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it -- Gandhi
You can find your local organisation for helping here: http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/PatentInformationLeafletsLinks
There are signs that the letter writing campaign has had the effect of getting some Ministers to stand up to their Patent Office reps. The Commission folks (and UK PTO) who conceived the hare-brained notion of the "clarification of practice" that would clarify nothing while ratifying the EPO's bogus practice, wanted a fast track approach, on the theory that many amendments would not survive a second reading in the EU Parliament. But some national Ministers want to examine the amendments in detail.
Seth Johnson
Bernhard Kaindl wrote:
On Mon, 29 Sep 2003, edA-qa mort-ora-y wrote:
Yes, it is a loaded question, but what is the general consensus towards the final wording of the patent law and whether software is effectively disqualified.
I also noted that some of the wording in the law may effectively make algorithms also not patentable -- such as the MP3 algorithm. Is this way off base, or has Franhaufer just lost their source of income?
No, they have lost nothing, nothing is finally decided yet. We are at a point in an EU law making process which is called co-decision procedure which could go on for quite some time and involve quite some steps before a final decision is reached.
The most exact descripton I've read so far is the Co-decision Guide of the Council: http://ue.eu.int/codec/en/EN.pdf
It's found on the codecision info/status page of the council: http://ue.eu.int/codec/en/
Which I linked from a greater info page on the law procedure: http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/EULawMakingProcess -> It also contains shorter explanations but they are less correct.
Right now, we've just passed the 1st reading in the European parliament in this process. It was an important step but nothing which is not reversible by the council.
Even if a text like the current one would be put into law, Fraunhofer would not loose it's source of income because a) it should have other sources of income as well and b) it currently depends on the interpretation of the European Patent Convention by the national courts if somebody has to pay a license fee. If they would interpret it in a way which says that an algorithm is not patentable, they would not have got much money from patent licenses in this country. And all thus EU stuff does also not directly affect the money which they get from US and Japanese patents.
I think the council has a very strange role now:
The group in the council prepares it's position on this law is some intellectual property group which is composed from delegations from all the national patent offices.
This group already had the law proposal in it's hands, the FFII has a page which details what it did:
http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/dkpto0209/
So it looks to me that this "EU-PTO" group is even more dangerous with regard to holes on this directive because they obvoiusly(logically) want to give all the power to the patent offices, as it can be interpreted from the changes described at the FFII page above.
It can be guessed that this group will propose some changes which introduce some holes into the proposal, probably more or less along the lines what JURI voted to have ammended in June, which would be really bad, but what else can we expect from a closed council group of patent office delegations?
I think we must point out that what they will propose will very likely be a very biased statement towards unlimited patentability (hidden) or at least give the patent offices the power to interpret the law like some patent offices, at least the EPO, has done so far.
To me this looks like to ask the people which are known to change their interpretation of the current legal framework(the EPC) how they like and make more money from it(the EPO makes good revenue!) by granting more patents it if they are happy with a new law which restricts their ability to interpret it like they did and loose much revenue.
I hope the position of the Council, at least in it's second reading, will not be determined by this group(but ATM, it seems to be) or a text which reduces the income of the patent offices will not be adopted.
This is purely wishful thinking (*dreaming again....*) but maybe with good work on the national press and national parliaments, the national ministers which should have the final say in the council would have their own opinion...
Bernhard
Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it -- Gandhi
You can find your local organisation for helping here: http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/PatentInformationLeafletsLinks _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list Discussion@fsfeurope.org https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion