[A2k] infoworld: EU patent chief hits back at criticism

[Manon Ress]

EU patent chief hits back at criticism
European parliamentarians will vote Wednesday on whether to support a
single patent regime for the whole of the EU

http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/10/10/HNeupatents_1.html?
source=3Drss&url=3Dhttp://www.infoworld.com/article/06/10/10/
HNeupatents_1.html

By Paul Meller, IDG News Service
October 10, 2006

European Patent Organization President Alain Pompidou hit back at
criticism of Europe's patent regime from parts of the software
industry Tuesday, with assurances that software per se cannot be
patented.

His comments at an intellectual property conference in Lisbon come as
the debate over the future of patents in Europe intensifies.

"The relatively high cost of European patents compared with their
Japanese and American counterparts can be considered detrimental to
the continuing success of the European patent system and to the
innovation process in general," Pompidou said in prepared remarks.

Although there has been a single European Patent Organization (EPO)
for almost 30 years, inventors still have to register their patents
in all the countries where they want patent protection.

European parliamentarians will vote Wednesday on whether to support a
new effort by the European Commission to create a single patent
regime for the whole of the European Union, the so-called Community
Patent.

The Commission, the E.U.'s executive and regulatory arm, is also
pushing a less ambitious, backup plan to improve the current system,
administered by the EPO. This entails the E.U. becoming a signatory
to two new EPO agreements: one to reduce the languages a patent must
be translated into, and a second agreement to set up one patent court
with sole responsibility for examining patent disputes.

After the European Parliament scrutinizes the Commission=92s plans this
week, the Union's 25 heads of state and government will discuss them
at an informal meeting in Finland, holder of the six-month rotating
E.U. presidency, on Oct. 20.

However, some prominent software industry voices bitterly oppose the
effort to create a single European patent court through the European
Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA), which remains in draft form for now.

Open-source and free software supporters believe the EPLA is a
disguised way of imposing software patents in Europe.

Florian Mueller, founder of the NoSoftwarePatents campaign that last
year helped to block the passing of a Union-wide law on computer-
implemented inventions (dubbed the software patent directive), said
the EPLA is even more onerous than the law he helped defeat.

"From a software patents point of view, the EPLA would have far worse
consequences than the rejected patentability directive would have
had: not only would software patents become more enforceable in
Europe but also patent holders in general would be encouraged to
litigate," he said in July at a hearing in Brussels.

Pompidou rejected the criticism and accused Mueller and others of
being "biased."

"The proportion of computer-implemented inventions is obviously
growing, as innovation tends to rely more and more on the information
technology incorporated in a growing number of devices, from cars to
washing machines to cell phones," he said.

"However, let me make it quite clear that the EPO does not have its
own agenda on software patents. In accordance with the 1973 European
Patent Convention (EPC), the EPO does not grant patents for computer
programs as such, but it does grant patents for computer-related
inventions that are novel, inventive and of a technical character."

"The non-obviousness criterion, as well as the novelty and the
technical character requirements, are strictly applied by the EPO,"
Pompidou said.

Supporters of software patents in industry are urging the Commission
to abandon efforts to create a Community patent because they fear
another bruising lobbying war with the antipatent campaigners.

Instead, they are urging Europe's legislators to pursue the less
ambitious tweaking of the existing system.

But it now seems that even this more modest initiative will be
fiercely debated, and the delicate issue of software patentability
will remain at the center of the debate.


************************************************
Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org,
www.cptech.org

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