By lawyers, for lawyers, but carefully and shrewdly disguised as news/journalism

Summary: China's patent office, SIPO, maintains its misguided policy that software is patentable and India, which antagonises these policies in the face of a never-ending shaming campaign, comes under attack from IAM 'magazine' twice in a single week

SIPO is one of the world's worst patent offices, if not the worst among prominent nations with a high-tech industry. We previously wrote about misguided new guidelines from SIPO and also used SIPO as an insult to the EPO, which seems eager to emulate SIPO's mistakes. See the following posts for example:

• Does the EPO Want Patent Quality to Decline Against the USPTO and Become Akin to SIPO?
• 'SIPO Europe': The EPO's Race to the Bottom of Patent Skills and Patent Quality
• Loose Patent Scope Becoming a Publicity Nightmare for the EPO and Battistelli Does a China Outreach (Worst/Most Notorious on Patent Quality)

SIPO examiners are now working against their national interest, for the appearance of "progress" (by artificially-inflated numbers). Trolls are already infesting China, which damages their economy. Sadly, over time, the same is becoming true in Europe and examiners from the EPO seem to be realising this. They didn't join the EPO to get enlisted into an assembly line but in order to work like researchers who carefully study prior art -- something akin to peer review.

"So they are promoting software patents under the guise of “clarity” — the same propaganda that is used in the US by lobbyist David Kappos and his large corporate clients, such as Microsoft and IBM."A few months ago we noted that India and China were moving in opposite directions; India had created a massive software (development and services) industry, whereas China is known for making billions of devices, so India rejects software patents, whereas China adopts them to give the impression of 'leadership' (as measured with a Battistellite yardstick). According to this new post, SIPO wants to become even more of a joke or an insult. On April 1^st (an interesting choice of date) it will officially allow software patents, i.e. patents on mathematics... (what next? Patents on clean air and clean water?) To quote:

In an effort to further enhance protection of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) and to promote implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy, the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) of China has revised its Examination Guidelines for Patents, which will come into force as of April 1, 2017.

The revised Guidelines include the patent eligibility of computer softwareand business method, the acceptability of post-filing experimental data for chemistry inventions, the rules of claim amendments during patent invalidation procedures, and the availability of public access to patent documentations. Notably, the revisions may lift the long standing curbs on software patents.

Meanwhile, IAM is up to its usual business, which seems to be lobbying. Only two days have passed since IAM last attacked India's policy for banning or excluding software patent. It does this again today, quoting somewhat of a Microsoft proxy (Wipro) as follows:

Faiz ur Rahman, head of intellectual property for Wipro, pointed to the agency's flip flop on software patents over the last couple of years as an egregious example. The patent office has issued guidelines for examining computer-related inventions in 2013, 2015 and 2016. While the 2015 rules seemed to move more in the direction of making software-related inventions patentable, the latest edition swung back in the opposite direction. For an IT services company like Wipro, that makes it very difficult to plot out a strategy for IP and innovation. “We need finality and quicker clarity over whether software is patentable in India”, Rahman said. “The uncertainty is really killing innovation”.

So they are promoting software patents under the guise of "clarity" -- the same propaganda that is used in the US by lobbyist David Kappos and his large corporate clients, such as Microsoft and IBM. When is IAM officially recognised (and perhaps registered) as a lobbyist/think [sic] tank, e.g. of the EPO, USPTO maximaists, and the patent trolls? Just watch IAM's pattern on India alone... ⬆