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UK High Court Allows Software Patent Claims
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat Jan 26, 2008 09:46 PM
from the there-goes-the-industry dept.
from the there-goes-the-industry dept.
An anonymous reader tips us to a note up on the IPKat blog, written by one of the four law-professor types behind that venture. The British High Court has ruled on appeal that the UK Patent Office must not reject software patent applications out of hand, as it has been doing for some time now. "In a surprising (to this Kat at least) turn of events, the Honourable Mr Justice Kitchin has ruled today that the current UK Patent Office practice of flatly rejecting patent claims to computer program products is wrong... Kitchin J found that the appeals should be allowed. Each application concerned a computer related invention where the examiner had allowed claims to, in effect, a method performed by running a suitably programmed computer and to a computer programmed to carry out the method... The cases were remitted to the [UK Intellectual Property Office] for further consideration in light of the judgment."
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Firehose:UK High Court Allows Software Patent Claims by Anonymous Coward
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sad news (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone claiming that there hasn't been any innovation in software over the last 10 years because of the lack of ability to patent it in the UK is clearly barking mad.
Yes, as someone that has worked on generating IP before I strongly believe that people should be paid for their work if they don't wish to donate it for free, but clearly a lack of patents hasn't prevented this either.
All this will bring eventually is the stifling of the software industry, oh, and more patent trolling, joy.
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Once upon a time.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, however, technology moves much faster than the human mind. A person may easily see two or three technological revolutions in his lifetime, each one forcing the rejection of old value systems and the embracing of new perspectives.
Unfortunately, the older a human mind gets, the less able it is to reject old value systems and embrace new perspectives.
So now, the decisions of the old-and-powerful wind up causing great harm to the young-and-visionary.
The thing that REALLY gets me is when young people...people who *should* know better...buy into this we-need-control-to-have-innovation crap.
If I could put smart in the water, I would.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Sadly there isn't any real way to compensate for the years of legal knowledge, training, experience required first.
Perhaps there should be some kind of requirement for a 'young' specialist advisement team on modern technological issues or something. Though the mere suggestion is probably bordering on ageism. I certainly have always felt that someone in tune with the issues at hand should be presiding on
Re:Once upon a time.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Has any of this has ever been true?
Alexander Graham Bell was born in 1847 and died in 1922.
He was born before the transcontinental telegraph and lived to see the beginnings of broadcast radio.
He was an infant when the wagon trains began moving westward along the Oregon trail and lived to see the steam locaomotive in its twilight and 20,000,000 automobiles on the American road.
He was a contemprary of John Deere, Erricson, the Roeblings, Edison, George Eastman, Ford, Burpee, Louis Sullivan, Willis Carrier, and a hundred others.
He was a witness - and often a participant - in technological revolutions that transformed agriculture, manufacturing, engineering, architecture, transportation, communications. transportation, medicine.
In 1881 he devised a metal detector to probe for the bullet that would kill President Garfield. In 1901 an X-Ray machine might have saved McKinley.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, there hasn't been much innovation in software... and US software patents have contributed to that.
Whether the UK does or does not have software patents has some symbolic significance, but it doesn't matter much in terms of the software business.
Re:sad news (Score:5, Insightful)
The smaller companies are just going to get blown out of the water. It's also going to massively increase small companies costs because they would have to try to patent everything they are doing. Not because they want to attack other companies, but because larger companies might patent it and try to attack them. Even if a big company was violating your patent, it would be stupid to attack them because you will soon discover you are violating lots of their little patents. Patents just protect big companies from smaller faster companies that might come along with new ideas.
It's obviously a big threat to open source as well.
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Well ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yay! (Score:3, Funny)
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I have to wonder... (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't panic just yet. (Score:3, Insightful)
But I thought the EU thew out Software patents? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's more complicated than that. Article 52 of the European Patent Convention excludes, among other things, "schemes, rules and methods for performing mental acts, playing games or doing business, and programs for computers ". (emphasis added)
However, it also says of those exclusions, "The provisions of paragraph 2 shall exclude patentability of the subject-matter or activities referred to in that provision only to the extent to wh
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The patents.. (Score:4, Informative)
Patent 2: Astron Clinica was founded to commercialise skin imaging techniques developed at the University of Birmingham which enable images of the skin to be processed to identify the distribution and concentration of underlying skin chromophores. The invention described in its application provides a system and process for generating realistic images representing the results of planned cosmetic or surgical interventions which change the actual or apparent distribution of these chromophores. The invention is implemented by programming a computer to process images in a particular way. It is commercialised here and abroad by selling a disc which causes a computer to be configured so as to undertake the required processing.
Patent 3: Inrotis is a spin-off company established by the University of Newcastle upon Tyne to commercialise drug discovery and network analysis techniques. Broadly speaking, the inventions the subject of its two applications in issue concern methods of identifying groups of target protein interactions. The commerical product which Inrotis sells is a computer disc which causes a computer to be configured so as to carry out the necessary processing.
Patent 4: SurfKitchen is a mobile services company and has made an invention which improves the ability of mobile telephones to access services on the internet. It is implemented by pre-storing a program on a mobile telephone memory or by downloading the program from the internet. In either case the program is usually made available by one of SurfKitchen's commerical partners to whom it makes the program available on a computer disc.
Patent 5: Cyan Technology is a semi-conductor company which designs and builds micro-controllers. It has invented a method of generating data for configuring micro-controllers which greatly simplifies chip design and programming. The commerical products that implement the invention are computer discs and Internet downloads worldwide.
Patents stopped following reality a long time ago (Score:5, Interesting)
I would be able to say that if, with this change, the patent system would be improved to further function as intended in... Uhh, 1474 [wikipedia.org]. Only more efficiently.
The period of protection was back then 10 years to protect the profit from new innovations, so inventors didn't get ripped off immediately, in turn keeping them interested in innovating. A great idea! Really, I think patents are in general a great idea, no sarcasm involved. They were then released after 10 years, fairly early at the time of technological evolution back then, so that it also didn't halt competition and innovations that were based on it. You also needed to have the product out. Because otherwise, there's not much to protect, you know? People back then didn't think mere ideas should be patentable.
Now, two main things seem to have changed. First, patents are now in effect for 20 years. And you can patent stuff before products are out and in use. Actually, you can patent without even planning to innovate anything! This of course has very harmful effects for innovation, and forms the breeding ground for businesses exploiting this as their business model, suing others for infringing on their oh-so-valuable patents.
As for the extended lifetime, it would still work out fairly well if this interesting graph [wikipedia.org] just wasn't in effect. (note: that graph is logarithmic; it's actually an exponential rate) Unfortunately for our patent situation, but fortunately for us living in this interesting day and age, history itself has proven it is. We don't even need to speculate, because it's historical evidence, not about anything that may happen in the future. The facts here are that we know which key events have happened in history (we know if something is a key event or not by looking at what the product of the paradigm shift was) and when they did, and that's pretty much all we need to see patent lifetime extensions are the least we have needed.
So, what I think must be done to restore patents to a working state again would be two main things:
1. Once again, like a long time ago, we should only be able to patent what's released, or possibly (in fear of day 1 patent hijacking after insider leaks) some duration less than e.g. a year in advance, but then the company will immediately have the patent expire if this goal is not fulfilled, along with having a hefty penalty associated with it, possibly a percentage of a company's revenue for some duration X (for an example, how about X being the time in advance the patent was granted?). So the more a company would "guess" and just throw things out without being sure of themselves, the greater risk of real losses they would run. They would now be forced to weigh the risk against the benefit. If they definitely have something worked on and are sure of themselves, sure, they could then submit the application, no special risks involved. Because they would be using the system as intented. I'm not sure if a patent should be allowed to be cancelled with no penalty, because that could be used to stall competition. Maybe that a project might not bear fruit and getting abandoned would have to be a risk a company submitting quite early patents would simply have to take.
2. Second, we need to adjust patent lifetimes to the accelerating rate of paradigm shifts in order to not risk slowing them down. This risk should logically increase the further into the future we get. The doubled patent lifetime since 1474 should probably instead have been halved by now. The adjustment was made in the opposite direction as demaned by society and rate of innovations. The lifetime may also need to be adapted to various business needs. For example, computer software is often considered old in 5 years. Within that timeframe, even Microsoft will have had time to develop Windows Vista, including the project reboot in between PDC 2003 and Beta 1, so that's not saying little.
No change on patent criteria (Score:5, Informative)
Before too many hysterical reactions kick in, bear in mind the actual rules have not changed here, and software patents as such are still disallowed in Europe. If you follow the link in TFA you'll get the current definitions (emphasis added):
"(1) European patents shall be granted for any inventions which are susceptible of industrial applications, which are new and which involve an inventive step.
(2) The following in particular shall not be regarded as inventions within the meaning of paragraph 1:
a. discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical methods;
b. aesthetic creations;
c. schemes, rules and methods for performing mental acts, playing games or doing business, and programs for computers;
d. presentations of information."
In that context, the test is then to decide whether claims such as the following are industrial applications which involve an inventive step, or purely programs for computers. I don't think they're all equal. The SurfKitchen sounds like a computer program to me, while I have some sympathy for the thought of Astron Clinica having invented a new overall way of carrying out surgery and wanting to patent the method, including the part that is carried out on a computer: it is not obvious, nor a business process, or something as basically stupid as the whole "One Click" thing. Also, note that these are mostly not software companies. You might still disagree with judge's conclusion and have further points to make, but please no more mindless nonsense about the imminent death of the UK software industry and a shift to the American system.
1. Software 2000: a method of generating bit masks for use with laser printers which results in higher quality images.
2. Astron Clinica: a system and process for generating realistic images representing the results of planned cosmetic or surgical interventions which change the actual or apparent distribution of underlying skin chomophores.
3. Inrotis: methods of identifying groups of target proteins for drug theray by processing proteome data defining proteins and protein interactions.
4. SurfKitchen: an invention to improve the ability of mobile telephones to access services on the Internet by pre-storing a program on a mobile telephone memory or by downloading the program from the Internet.
5. Cyan Technology: a method of generating data for configuring micro-prodcts which greatly simplifies chip design and programming.
Hasn't anyone picked up on writing software? (Score:3, Interesting)
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That doesn't mean that it should be patentable, beca
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Re:Welcome (Score:5, Informative)
It brings the UK back in line with the rest of Europe; for a while, we were the only place disallowing any form of software patent. We're now back to "software patents if you can show a technical effect", which is enough to block most stuff which gets patented in the US/Japan.
The software patent battle was never properly won in Europe. It was prevented from being made much worse, but we still have software patents of limited sorts.
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Re:Welcome (Score:4, Funny)
My dad's reaction after he spotted your post on my screen.
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