This is difficult to ask for since the TRIPS agreement requires that patents
last 20 years.
Perhaps - in which case you play them at their own game. The 2-year software limitation clause would only affect
software patents, which are disguised as non-software-patents. The patent itself would be valid for the full 20 years
for non-software implementations.
Alternatively just exempt software-implementations from the get-go.
Another problem is that the start of a patents' term of validity is
back-dated to when the application was made, IIRC. Because the EPO is so
overloaded, application processing time is currently measured in years. So
a 2-3 year duration might be completely unacceptable to the EPO since it
would lead to patents that are expired-on-grant (we would have a hard time
selling this idea to politicians). This should be fixed, but we might be,
ah, spraying water against the wind if we try to fix the general the
problems of the European patent system while trying to fix our specific
problem.
On the other hand, they may welcome such a limitation on patents, since the patents would
be less valuable, leading to a reduction of applications, thereby easing their workload. Then
again, maybe the EPO has a different sense of logic to me.
And if the pharma lobby get worried that this idea will spread to other
domains, we could gain new powerful enemies that we don't need.
--
Ciarán O'Riordan, +32 477 36 44 19, http://ciaran.compsoc.com/
Recent blog entries:
http://fsfe.org/en/fellows/ciaran/ciaran_s_free_software_notes/openstreetmap_is_doing_great
http://fsfe.org/en/fellows/ciaran/ciaran_s_free_software_notes/launching_your_favourite_editor_in_firefox
http://fsfe.org/en/fellows/ciaran/ciaran_s_free_software_notes/updating_debian_keys_for_the_uninterested