Compliance Toolkit

Story: EC pushes on with patent directive

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Mr. Trainee Patent Attorney, dealing with software patents on a daily basis and having read the proposed directive doesn't exactly make you an IP laywer and experienced software developer as well, does it?

Tell me, on what legal basis are software patents currently being granted? How much is charged for that service? What's the decision making process for granting a software patent? Is the legal and commercial impact a software patent might have part of that decision making process? What if the legal and commercial impact a software patent has changes because the law changes, would that make any difference to the decision making process? Would already granted software patents be revoked under certain circumstances and if so, which ones? Under which circumstances could the Patent Office itself be draged to court?

Fact is that mostly big firms are pushing for legalized software patents in the EU. Is that to clear up the legal position of software patents in the EU? Most certainly, but could you enlighten us as to why they want that? Have software patents been granted for obvious "inventions"? Well, would you quit your job if we could point out just one? Can truly good ideas be rewarded without legalized software patents? Most certainly. Will smaller firms with a software patented IP be better protected against bigger firms with an enormous software patented IP and huge legal resources? I think not.

It seems to me that the group of pro software patent people is getting smaller and less powerfull by the day. I think there are reasons for that which have been explained in length.

Here's a web site you might find interesting. It's not perfectly balanced but should provide enough leads to research further by means of more independant web sites.

http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/intro/index.html

http://www.base.com/software-patents/examples.html

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