Microsoft's business model currently depends on software patents, which is why it has hired lobbyists and recruited front groups to lobby for them all around the world. Yesterday we used Hugo Lueders (CompTIA) as an example, not a scapegoat. CompTIA has lobbies for software patents in Europe even this month.
BPAI Remanding Cases Involving Computer-Oriented Means-Plus-Function Claims
In Ex party Rodriguez, the BPAI rejected a patent applicant's means-plus-function (MPF) claims as indefinite for failing to provide any corresponding structures in the specification beyond a general purpose computer. That decision followed the Federal Circuit's Aristocrat holding that "simply disclosing a computer as the structure designated to perform a particular function does not limit the scope of the claim to 'the corresponding structure, material, or acts' that perform the function, as required by section 112 paragraph 6."
The German appeal court has overturned a decision by the German Federal Patent Tribunal to declare Microsoft's patent for the File Allocation Table (FAT) file system invalid. In judgement number X ZR 27/07, handed down on Tuesday, the tenth civil division of the Karlsruhe-based court confirmed the enforceability of the company's commercial rights in Germany. It has not yet published its reasoning, but has confirmed the decision in a short press release (German language link).