Source: http://www.visaepatentes.com/2010_08_01_archive.html
Timestamp: 2015-04-28 00:29:51
Document Index: 440789297

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 102', 'Art. 92', 'Art. 93', 'Art. 28', 'Art. 353', 'Art. 14', 'Art. 28', 'Art. 134', 'Art. 28', 'Art. 28', 'Art. 28', 'Art. 52']

Only recently, the USPTO has published the BPAI decision ex parte Givens as an informative opinion on the importend question as to how broad patent claims may be interpreted by USPTO examiners. As summarised on Peter Zura's 271 Patent Blog, an application relating to a "method and apparatus for reducing noise associated with acoustic sensor outputs" has been rejected during examination due to alledged lack of novelty over a prior art reference pursuant 35 U.S.C § 102(e). While the rejected claim comprised a "sub-band spectral subtractive routine", the Examiner argued that, since the application did "not provide a specific definition of 'sub-band spectral subtractive routine', thus, giving the term its broadest reasonable interpretation, the term can include any adaptive filter".
Although Appellant’s Specification does not specifically define the term “sub-band spectral subtractive routine,” this is a specific claim term for a specific type of filtering (Spec. ¶[0032]). Any interpretation that fails to give weight to “sub-band,” “spectral,” “subtractive,” and “routine” deprives the words in this claim term of their normal meaning.Thus, the term “sub-band spectral subtractive routine” does not include just any adaptive filter, but rather refers to a specific filtering. In fact the prior art circuit is fed to a summer and not to a sub-band spectral subtractive routine and the reference does not describe the summer as operating on a sub-band. The reference thus did not disclose each and every element of the invention.
encompass [] a computer program per se [and] also encompass [] the computer program product being embodied on a carrier wave [since the claims recited] the open transitional phrase 'comprising and do [] not preclude the computer program product from being embodied in a carrier wave. As reported on Justin Gray's Gray on Claims blog, the BPAI found that the claims encompassed both a computer program per se as well as a signal, and were therefore directed to non-statutory subject matter.
computer program per se,
ex parte Givens,
ex parte Peyrelevade,
The OAMI Users' Group sees itself in the important role of encouraging regular consultation and feedback between users and OHIM with regard to all aspects of the Community trade mark and design systems. Members of the Users' Group are international non-governmental organisations that represent interested parties from the sector, such as AIPPI, BusinessEurope, FICPI, GRUR, INTA, LES, MARQUES, to name just a few. Currently, according to Art. 92 (2) CTMR, natural or legal persons not having either their domicile or their principal place of business or a real and effective industrial or commercial establishment in the Community must appoint a qualified representative pusuant Art. 93 (1) CTMR to act for them in all proceedings except the filing of an application for a CTM.
For the latest OAMI Users' Group meeting on 15 March 2010 at the OHIM in Alicante, OHIM proposed a significant change regarding the professional representation of non-EU applicants to reduce their costs: There is little objective justification for insisting on representation when there is no need for exchanges between the Office and the applicant. The rationale behind requiring professional representation relies on two principal ideas. Firstly, non-EU entities should have advice available from EU professionals in dealing with their applications. There is no requirement for representation at the point of application. If there are no deficiencies there is no need for advice. [...] In the light of this the Office proposes to change its practice and will no longer insist on professional representation of non-EU entities where an application for a CTM or RCD has no deficiencies. [...] The Office will continue to insist on representation where there is a deficiency or where inter partes proceedings (e.g. an application for invalidity) are launched.On behalf of MARQUES, the meeting was attended by Mr David Stone, Mr Jochen Höhfeld, and Ms Paola Tessarolo. According to their memo for the meeting, this change would apply to two third of all CTM applications. While a number of Users' Group members asked for more time to comment, others were able to articulate their view: FICPI submitted a formal position paper, according to which such change is not a change in practice but that this would constitute a change in law, there being no basis in the law for the changed practice.
INTA mentioned that such change could be an advantage for the users, however, that this could create problems when one wants to contact e.g. a Chinese applicant to negotiate before filing an opposition. APRAM found it desirable if their was reciprocity between the different countries that will take advantage of this new practice, while OHIM pointed to the fact that there was reciprocity e.g. already in the Madrid System. It was agreed that this is a highly political issue. While OHIM anounced a draft on this issue from the European Commission, we now learn from the IPKat about an interesting communication regarding this delicate issue, according to which
[...] on sharing this point of view with user associations, [OHIM] found there were strong objections from some of them. In order to allow these objections to be fully considered, we have decided not to introduce this change of practice. Instead, we will be asking the European Commission to consider the question as part of the ongoing review of the functioning of the trade mark system in Europe [...].As the IPKat assumes that this change of mind may be due to the fact that "users' associations" in fact consist of "people who get paid by clients to represent them in matters concerning Community trade marks" (which is a bit exaggerated, since many of above NGO's equally represent trademark owners), Gareth Dickson, a commercial IP litigator, adds that applicants should be required to appoint a foreign representative, since he "can't imagine the turmoil applicants would have to endure if they were given the option of appointing a properly qualified representative whose place of business is physically located outside the EU". In fact, the matter will now be reviewed within the much broader context of the "Study on the trade mark system in Europe" initiated by the European Commission and conducted by the Munich-based IP thinktank of the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property, which provides a platform for input and observations and to inform stakeholders and the interested public about the course of the Study.
UPDATE:In a reply to the IPKat's suggestion that professional bodies object to the removal of the restriction because it denies them work, Filemot of the SOLO blog counter argerued that [t]he difficulty [...] is that the European entrepreneur does not have a similar privilege to do the same in the rest of the world. If WIPO thinks its worth taking up, then compulsory representation for out-of-territory applicants could become a thing of the past but, until then, I do not see why OHIM should go unilateral.and offers "to represent an out of state applicant who needs a representative for free". The concrete terms of this invitation to treat can be studied here.
non-EU applicants,
Study on Trademark Sysem in Europe,
The actually discussed issues were: The admissibility of the request for an opinion according to Art. 28 (11) TFEU (Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union or, more common, Lisbon Treaty); The compatibility of the Draft Agreement with the Lisbon Treaty under consideration of whether or not treaties with third party states are required for the functioning of the internal market. Some EU member states completely negated the compatibility of the Draft Agreement, while others saw compatibility in view of Art. 353 TFEU;
The crucial translation arrangement has been excluded from the Draft Agreement and could thus not be covered in the hearing. However, based on the language regime of the European Patent Convention (Art. 14 EPC), a proposal for a translation arrangement of the European Commission has been published on June 30, 2010 (see earlier posting). For further reading, please refer to the official report for the hearing or the private notes of Mr Jochen Pagenberg, current President of EPLAW.
And there is another intense debate among stakeholders relating to the regulation of representation before the new EEUPC, which is controversally discussed among the legal professions involved - lawyers (attorneys-at-law) and patent attorneys. The related paragraphs 1 to 2 of Article 28 (Representation) of the Draft Agreement read:
(2a) Representatives of the parties may be assisted by patent attorneys who shall be allowed to speak at hearings of the Court in accordance with the Rules or Procedure.According to Art. 28 (2) of the Draft Agreement, European Patent Attorneys (EPAs) in the sense of Art. 134 EPC will be, besides lawyers, alternatively entitled for representation if they have proven their approprite qualification by a "EU Patent Litigation Certificate", whereas other patent attorneys not being European Patent Attorneys may only assist the respective represantative, i.e. the respective lawyer or certified European Patent Attorney. Here's what three relevant stakeholders think about the draft provisions on representation of EPA's before the EEUPC. I. Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE)
Quite naturally, the lawyer's lobby groups, especially the (CCBE), are "concerned" about the suggested representation regime, even though it introduces the Litigation Certificate as a further hurdle for European Patent Attorneys. For instance, Jonathan Goldsmith, Secretary General of CCBE, critisised in the UK Law Society Gazette that Art. 28 "says nothing about the qualification criteria for such attorneys, regulatory and disciplinary consequences for misconduct, or the position relating to privilege". position paperThe lawyers representing the parties may be assisted by European Patent Attorneys who are entitled to act as professional representatives before the European Patent Office pursuant to Article 134 EPC provided that the lawyers assisted in this way maintain full responsibility for complying with all obligations to the Court required of legal representatives.isputes should be carried out by a suitably qualified and properly trained professional lawyer that can guide the client through all aspects of the case.vague concept of a European Union Patent Litigation Certificate cannot address and provide the required level of training and no guarantee of appropriate standards can be given to the public;Professional representatives have to be subject to clear, consistent rules of behaviour backed by an effective disciplinary procedure, whereas a certificate provides no guarantee for a behaviour in accordance with such principles. Since in a number of EU countries patent attorneys do not belong to any legal professionpositional paper of the European Patent Institute (EPI), which may be seen as a direct reply to the CCBE's observations, the professional body of registered European Patent epi worked out the following advantages of representation by EPA's: Cost Benefit: The numbers of those representing the parties in a patent action would be reduced with significant cost-benefit, as mentioned in the Final Report "Economic Cost-Benefit Analysis of a Unified and Integrated European Patent Litigation System" by the Institute for Innovation Research of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, 26 February 2009. This is because Art. 28 would allow the client to choose whether to be represented by an EPA, by a lawyer or by a team. This would lead to more competition among representatives and, thus, limit the cost of litigation. By this and other cost effects, smaller businesses would be attracted to patent litigation leading to an increase in the demand for patent litigation. Quality of Representation: Besides a number of years training and practice in patent law, EPA's, unlike lawyers, will have an appropriate qualification such as the European Union Patent Litigation Certificate, which will guaratee quality of representation before the EEUPC. No lawyer is at present familiar with the specialised procedural law before the EEUPC. EPA's will have to familiarize themselves with this new procedural law in the same way as lawyers should do so, the difference being that the EPA's will have to satisfy the requirement for the EU Patent Litigation Certificate. Lawyers: The cadre of lawyers will include many who have no knowledge of technology, patent law (e.g. the EPC) or of the procedural law of the unified EEUPC. While a lawyer’s education in the field of law is general and broad, it is not specific to the field of intellectual property or patents. Although litigation before the EEUPC will relate to and raise many complex and specific questions of law, the necessary experience, knowledge and expertise to deal with them will not be held by most lawyers, especially if the lawyers come from a state with little or no tradition in the patent field.
Specific expertise: EPA's are trained to defend or attack the validity of patents. Analysis of the scope of protection of patents and the doctrine of equivalents are part of EPA's everyday practice, as well as formulating or considering arguments against the enforcement of a patent, rules concerning the exhaustion of a patent, and classic defence arguments. EPA's have to provide the lawyers with the necessary arguments on both validity and infringement in litigation and also represent in opposition and appeal proceedings patent before the EPO. EPA's already act before European Court: The Boards of Appeal of the EPO are an autonomous authority, comprising a Presidium and various Chambers hearing the individual cases, such that already today EPA’s are considered competent to represent parties before a European authority whose Chambers act according to common Rules of Procedure, hear witnesses and experts, like any other civil court, and conduct the proceedings in any of the three official languages. Disciplinary procedures: Article 11 of the “Regulation on the establishment of an Institute of professional representatives before the EPO (epi) and the “Regulation on discipline for professional representatives” prescribe rules of professional conduct for EPA's. The “Additional Rules of procedure of the Disciplinary Committee” govern a Disciplinary Committee of the epi and the procedures of the Committee. It is possible that additional special rules of professional conduct may be proposed for EPA representatives before the EEUPC. For lawyers, the rules of professional conduct and the disciplinary procedures vary considerably throughout the EU Member States.
Art. 28 DrftAgrmnt,
Protecting software by patenting is inconsistent with the open source model, and its proponents oppose it. [...] They felt that computer software should be excluded from patent protection as software patents can stifle innovation and competition, and can be granted for trivial or existing techniques. In general we accept this position.Unsurprisingly, there were not only happy faces in New Zealand and some buisiness voices expressed their fear that the decision damages investments in New Zealand's software development industry, among which was the NZICT, which claims to represent "New Zealand's ICT industry" and, as such, also the local subsidiaries of a number of international patent holders (e.g. Microsoft, IBM, HP).
Even more rumours on a European approach towards software patents were planted by reports on a letter in which a New Zealand patent attorney reports from the NZICT discussing this shift. While the blog post has been deleted soon after publication, some were quick enough to reconstruct it from Google cache and to extract that a government official made the points that the MED "had serious concerns" and "the intent had never been to ban software patents outright". Instead, "the signal that the Government wants to send is to follow European law and practice [according to which] software [...] should have a technical purpose and be an inventive step to be patentable". Now, after all this back and forth, the MED has decided that it was the real intent of the Committee, all along, to treat machine-controlling software as a special class that may be patentable. Consequently, it was then confirmed by Minister Power on July 15, 2010 that "further amendment to the bill is neither necessary nor desirable" and that he "instructed the IPONZ to develop guidelines to allow inventions that contain embedded software to be patented", since it was accepted by the Committee and the Minister that companies investing in inventions involving "embedded" computer programs should be able to obtain patent protection for these inventions (see also reports here and here).
In the light of this history, it appears highly doubtful whether the IPONZ can succeed where the Select Committee found it "too difficult to define such a distinction" and competent legal and technical minds across the world have failed as well. In any case, it will be exciting to follow how New Zealand tries to set up an embedded/non-embeded doctrine competing with the technical-character paradigm of the EPO Appeal Boards (see e.g. here) and the increasingly similar technical-problem paradigm of the German Federal Court of Justice (see e.g. here), on the one hand, and the abstract-idea paradigm of the US Supreme Court (see e.g. here) and the machine-or-transformation paradigm of the US CAFC (see e.g. here), on the other hand. In the end, maybe after another two decades of intense discussions and lobbying, it will eventually turn out that all theses appraches only represented different "compromises around linguistic traps" (as former CAFC Chief Judge Paul Michel called his Bilski decision) and meanwhile have converged into a common "theory" on software patent eligibility. First tender indications of such conversion migh be the increasing interchange of "indefinite legal concepts" between the various judical approaches, such as the notion of "software as such" as codified in Art. 52 EPC, which has recently been used by the BPAI in ex parte Proudler to reject claims based on the US Supreme Court's abstract idea approach, or the fact that the German Federal Court of Justice recently analysed under which circumstances "embedded software" may represent statutory subject-matter and, by this, convered towards the EPO approach.
A recent article on the IP Jur blog addressed, in a different context, the popular myths that "patents are a tool to steal a software developer his hard-earned fruits of labor" and that "patent owners all of a sudden jump out of the bushes armed with a patent certificate [...] demanding to cease and desist commercially using the poor developer's software". It was then clarified that, generally, much in the same way in that you have to make sure that the estate on which you desire to build your house is not owned by any third party, software developers need to ensure that there are no patents covering technical aspects of a planned software project, i.e. that they have the freedom to operate. The current conflict between IBM and TurboHercules, a french company selling an emulator that allows conventional computers with mainstream operating systems to run software that is designed for IBM System Z mainframe hardware based on the open source Hercules project, is a good example for both the cultivation of the patent myths by (parts of) the FOSS community and the trueness of the clarifying advice on ensuring freedom-to-operate. In March this year IBM mainframe CTO Mark Anzani sent a warning letter to TurboHercules, according to which IBM has "substantial concerns" that the Hercules project infringes on its patents, with 173 of theses patentes being specified in a nine pages enclosure to that letter.
According to the background information on Ars Technica, IBM's software licensing model ties its mainframe operating system to its underlying System Z hardware, guaranteeing that customers cannot easily migrate to other hardware options, whereas this lock-in strategy is the reason why IBM's mainframe business is still profitable despite the declining relevance of the technology. While IBM has shown a fair amount of goodwill to Hercules' projects in the past, TurboHercules then came up with a rather obsure idea to circumvent the licensing restrictions by interpreting parts of the license in a way that it could make it legally permissible to use IBM's mainframe operating system with Hercules in some cases. Following IBM's initial threats of legal action, Hercules filed an antitrust motion with the European Union, to unbundle IBM's mainframe operating system from its mainframe hardware, which was answered by IBM with the above-referenced warning letter (the full correspondence between Roger Bowler, President of TurboHercules, and IBM can be reviewed here). Now prominent FOSS campaigner Florian Müller came into play when TurboHercules disclosed the letter to him for broad publication. Müller covered the mythical Big Blue vs. Little Hercules story by a series of articles on his FOSS Patents blog (see here, here, here, and here), in which he complained that "IBM is using patent warfare in order to protect its highly lucrative mainframe monopoly" and that
[t]his proves that IBM’s love for free and open source software ends where its business interests begin. In market segments where IBM has nothing to lose, open source comes in handy and the developer community is courted and cherished. In an area in which IBM generates massive revenues (an estimated $25 billion annually just on mainframe software sales!), any weapon will be brought into position against open source. Even patents, which represent to open source what nuclear arms are in the physical world. Müller went on to claim that IBM had violated its public pledge not to sue open source software projects for patent infringement, since two of the 173 patents/applications cited in the warning letter were plegded to the Linux community in IBM's 2005 "patent pledge".
In reply, Groklaw called Müller's assertions nothing more than FUD: "The complaint against IBM was filed with the EU Commission by TurboHercules. At that exact moment, did they not take themselves out from under the patent pledge's safety umbrella?" Whereas Müller's moves and interpretations were closely followed by online media, such as PC World, ZDNet, The H, and even the Wall Street Journal, anti-Microsoft blogger Roy Schestowitz didn't hesitete to produce a conspiracy theory in order to link this conflict to his anti-Microsoft universe: "TurboHercules was a member of organisations funded by rivals such as Microsoft Corp 'to attack the mainframe', which is IBM’s main business. [...] TurboHercules is a member of a non-profit trade group called the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), which counts Microsoft and Oracle Corp as members, but not IBM". Further, based on Müller's LinkedIn connections, Schestowitz winded another conspiracy when accusing Müller of being a lobbyist of CCIA and Microsoft, since "Müller set up his anti-IBM blog when he got connected [on LinkedIn] with CCIA’s Executive VP, who works with Microsoft", which was answered by Müller by raising "serious doubts about whether I can expect a minimum standard of reasonableness on BoycottNovell's part". But that's just skrimish.
If FOSS companies want to compete, they’ll have to do it the old fashioned way: creating their own intellectual property and using that as a leverage against better-established corporations. Sometimes the wise choice will be to avoid a market because getting in commercially will be impossible. Or it might be that a TurboHercules notices that all the patents asserted are in the US, possibly leaving room to operate in other parts of the world.Similar voices, as collected on Technewsworld, called Roger Bowler's strategy "a bit naive" and assume that IBM "is rightfully concerned that a commercial enterprise is attempting to make money off of their IPR". Consequently, "the Hercules project obviously contains processes and technology that is covered by IBM's IPR. For Mr. Bowler to state otherwise is either total naivety or unwise business practice."
Meanwhile, following complaints by Turbo Hercules and T3 Technologies (another emulator software vendor), the European Commission has initiated formal anti-trust investigation against IBM, alleging it might have abused its dominant position on the mainframe computer market. In a press release of July 26, 2010, the Commission declared that it has "concerns that IBM may have engaged in anti-competitive practices with a view to foreclosing the market for maintenance services [...], in particular by restricting or delaying access to spare parts for which IBM is the only source." UPDATE: According to a recent article in the New York Times, IBM assumes that "the companies that filed the complaints [are] proxies of Microsoft" (the same term that Schestowitz used to describe Müller's interest in the case - another conspiracy here?) and accused Microsoft of orchestrating the complaints to promote sales of its Wintel servers: "Let there be no confusion whatsoever: there is no merit to the claims being made by Microsoft and its satellite proxies. [...] Certain IBM competitors, which have been unable to win in the marketplace through investments in fundamental innovations, now want regulators to create for them a market position that they have not earned".
Bloomberg further reported that, following up these accusations, Microsoft spokesman Frank Shaw took the position that Microsoft "invests in startup companies such as T3 Technologies to give customers greater choice" and that they "share T3’s belief that there needs to be greater openness and choice for customers in the mainframe market". (Photo (C) 2009 by v1ctory:1s_m1ne via Flickr under the terms of a CC license)