EU Amends Software Patent Directive (Suggestions)

jopet writes "The EU has amended its draft proposal for a directive on how to handle patents on "computer-implemented inventions'. Several harsh points have been dropped and clarifications on what is patentable at all have been added. Good to see that protests and petitions can make a difference." YHBT. These are the suggestions from June.

Is this enough to stop a repeat of LZW?

[Xner]

(13c) Furthermore, an algorithm is inherently non-technical and therefore cannot constitute a technical invention. Nonetheless, a method involving the use of an algorithm might be patentable provided that the method is used to solve a technical problem. However, any patent granted for such a method would not monopolise the algorithm itself or its use in contexts not foreseen in the patent.

On the surface it seems this amendment would stop patenting general purpose algorithms. On the other hand, a suitably lax definition of "technical problem" makes this all moot. "The LZW arithmetic coding algorithm" is not patentable. "Using the LZW algorithm for data comression" however is. You are still free to use it for other things (like what? Creative Garbling?), but we all the the Phyrricity of that victory.

Amendment 20, Article 6 a (new)

[perttu]

Article 6a

Member States shall ensure that wherever the use of a patented technique is needed for the sole purpose of ensuring conversion of the conventions used in two different computer systems or network so as to allow communication and exchange of data content between them, such use is not considered to be a patent infringement

Some points

[sufehmi]

• "...(online) petition can make a difference" ?
  I won't be too sure about that, not when many MEP doesn't (have time to) browse Internet regularly.
  (read Tom Chance's story about his lobbying efforts)
  
  
• It STILL allows software to be patented.
  
  
• Although with many restrictions, including declaring that business method/algorithm to be non-patentable.
  
  
• BUT we have witnessed cases where corporations are able to twist interpretations, and challenge everyone who questioned to go to court.
  Small companies/individuals, which can not afford the cost, will simply admit defeat and comply to whatever the big corporations are demanding them to.
  
  
• So personally, I think we still need to do a lot of real (not virtual) lobbying to ensure that software are not patentable.
  EU have no software-patent legislation now, and to my knowledge, there are no CLEAR cases that justifies this (feel free to enlighten me though)
  

Just my 2 pence on the topic.

Europe vs. U.S.

[rolux]

Europe's political stance towards the U.S. is shifting, from close alliance to more competition, if not confrontation.

So Europeans start to notice that pushing Open Source, be it adopting Linux on the desktop, be it simply not passing laws that make OSS development impossible, is going to give them a competitive advantage in the long run.

As a European, I would be as critical about "European Linux hegemony" as I am about "American Microsoft hegemony", but still... Issues like this one may sooner or later make U.S. lawmakers realize that in the end it's the economy, stupid.

Re:Is this enough to stop a repeat of LZW?

[Anonymous Coward]

This 13c alone might not be, but 6a seems to be enough to quote:

6a: "Member States shall ensure that wherever the use of a patented technique is needed for the sole purpose of ensuring conversion of the conventions used in two different computer systems or network so as to allow communication and exchange of data content between them, such use is not considered to be a patent infringement"

So it seems to be allowed to compress data using LZW if that is need to communicate to a system that assumes data is compressed with the LZW algorithm.

This still does not allow use of LZW in whatever application you want, but as soon as it is needed to communicate with some other system that happens to use LZW it should not be considered patent infringement.

Since i am not a lawyer i have no clue what happens if you want to communicate with a system that uses LZW illegally, but this 6a seems to offer some possibilities at least

Amazon patent excluded?

[Frans Faase]

The real test will be whether the patent that already has been granted to Amazon by the European Patent Office (EPO) will be excluded. It is a patent about sending gifts through a web site, e.g., the possibility of sending an item to an other address than where the bill goes.

This is just one of the 30.000 software related patents that have been granted by the EPO but which are not enforced yet by any European law. If the new law is not going to invalidate some of those patents, then it is simply useless, because patents granted by the EPO would define the interpretation of the law.

Re:There never was a Software Patent Free EU

[Daniel Phillips]

There are _tons_ of software patents in the EU. It's just that their status have been rather undetermined, and filing for such a patent - while possible - has been a sort of a gamble, as nobody has known the future of their enforceability. Now, thanks to this directive, we do know.

What do we know, are they enforceable or not?

Re:Insightful?

[-brazil-]

You may be thinking about patenting processes, ideas, DNA and other rubbish but the EU system isn't as abused or open to abuse as the US.

Actually, it is. Or at least trying very hard to be. The European Patent Office has been issuing [ffii.org] software patents for years, even though it isn't allowed to. They can't be enforced yet, but that will change if the directive passes and is implemented.

Furthermore, the quality of the examination of patent application has decreased drastically [ffii.org] for some time now.