India too is fighting against software patents
Of course, this is the exact opposite of what the patent system is supposed to do -- but pretty much everyone who's actually innovating these days seems to recognize the same thing. What amazes me is that we haven't seen more of what Mark hints at towards the very end: countries providing explicit safe havens around patents. We have examples of this in the past -- perhaps most famously, the Netherlands and Switzerland in the latter half of the 19th century. The Netherlands dumped patents entirely, while the Swiss limited what was patentable massively (to the point that very little was considered patentable at all). And both countries saw economic growth as a result -- where industry and innovation flocked to both countries because they weren't being held back by patent disputes.
The UK Intellectual Property Office Hearing Officer rejected the application, concluding that it consisted of a 'program for a computer...as such' and did not meet the patentability criteria of Article 52, inorporated into the UK legislation by s.1(2) of the Patents Act 1977. If that wasn't enough, the invention disclosed in the application consisted of a 'scheme, rule or method for ...doing business...as such.'
Comments
Needs Sunlight
2012-05-20 12:53:08
http://www.epo.org/law-practice/legal-texts/html/epc/1973/e/ar52.html
Why can't the politicians in charge just take the pro-SW patent noise makers and rub their noses in Article 52?
The same goes for the other EU countries.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2012-05-20 13:00:58