Talk:Software patents under the European Patent Convention

message: I removed the "since 1-click is patentened by the EPO as well". This is a fallacy since US Patent 5,960,411 entitled "Method and system for placing a purchase order via a communications network" has not equivalent in Europe. --Edcolins 22:03, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Amazon's One-Click US patent has no equivalent in Europe 

message: See WikiProject Fact and Reference Check#Help on whether or not the 2nd paragraph of the article is original research. Your opinion is welcome. --Edcolins 21:12, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Original research (cont'd) 

message: :While according to the European Patent Register in 2005, 85% of European patent applications in the field of electric digital data processing (G06F in the International Patent Classification (IPC)) did not give rise to a granted patent but were refused on various grounds or withdrawn by the applicant in response to the search report or substantive objections of the EPO, some of them have been granted by the EPO since the '80s. At present, applications in this field account for 7% of the total number of applications to the EPO, but only for about 2% of all granted patents.
This paragraph looks like original research to me. But even if it weren't, how is it relevant to the introductory paragraph of this article? Fagstein 03:00, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disputed paragraph 

message: According to a powerpoint presentation given at the WWW2006 conference in Edinburgh in May 2006 by Dr Clara Neppel, an EPO patent examiner in Munich,
* over 50% of patent applications in the category cluster "computers" are ultimately refused or withdrawn.
* over 70% of patent applications in the category field "electronic commerce" are ultimately refused or withdrawn
(slide 38 out of 40).
-- Jheald 19:55, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statistics 

message: I'm aware that "software patents" are the hot topic at the moment, but given that I cannot think of a single case in recent EP history that JUST involved the computer program exclusion, might it be a good idea to rename this article "excluded subject matter under the European Patent Convention" or something. Making it more general to include the business method exclusion in particular (since you can then start talking about the 1-click application properly) would open it up. Different articles on the different exclusions would just contain so much overlapping subject matter as to be useless.
What do people think? I have no desire to make such a change myself because I don't know enough about the inner workings of Wikipedia to know how it might affect all the other articles that link to this one under its current title. Yes, I'm sorry I'm a relative newbie to Wiki. :)
GDallimore 01:20, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should this page be renamed 

message: "The European Patent Convention (EPC), Article 52, paragraph 2, excludes from patentability, in particular
discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical methods;
aesthetic creations;
schemes, rules and methods for performing mental acts, playing games or doing business, and programs for computers;
presentations of information. (emphasis added)
Paragraph 3 then says:
(3) The provisions of paragraph 2 shall exclude patentability of the subject-matter or activities referred to in that provision only to the extent to which a European patent application or European patent relates to such subject-matter or activities as such. (emphasis added)"
---> why not quote the EPC 52.2/3 in toto? Paragraph 2 does not exclude from patentability but explains what is in particular no invention. "(2) The following in particular shall not be regarded as inventions within the meaning of paragraph 1:", exclusion from patentability is only an effect.Podmok 12:30, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  misleading quote 

message: more refs for "SA SAGEM c./ M. le directeur de l'INPI":
*Une " méthode " ne peut être l'objet d'un dépôt de brevet: Aux termes des dispositions des articles L. 612-12-5° et L. 611-10- 2° du Code de la propriété intellectuelle, une demande de brevet dont l'objet ne peut manifestement pas être considéré comme une invention doit être rejetée, dès lors qu'il s'agit d'une méthode applicable dans le domaine des activités économiques ou bien lorsque l'invention n'est manifestement pas susceptible d'application industrielle. CA Paris, 4ème Ch. Sect. B, 10 janvier 2003, SA Sagem c/ M.le directeur de l'INPI
:http://www.cabinet-levy.com/site/article.php?id=131
:http://bat8.inria.fr/~lang/reperes/local/sagem-inpi.html
:http://www.droit.univ-paris5.fr/warusfel/articles/Methodcom_warusfel03.pdf  
:http://www.irpi.ccip.fr/upload/pdf/private/revue/20070808102113_19-CH-Droit-des-cr%C3%A9ations-techniques.pdf pp.202-204
:http://www.irpi.ccip.fr/upload/pdf/private/revue/20070808112247_12-CH-Droit-des-cr%C3%A9ations-techniques.pdf pp.790-791
—Preceding unsigned comment added by Swen (talk • contribs) 22:27, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  France 

message: I realize that this is not a trivial question, but the article fails to address it adequately. 
I tidied up the Article 52 section a bit.  But the statement "a way of making a computer run faster or more efficiently" needs reference.   More case law would be great.  I note that none of the recent IPhone etc patent cases seem to invoke this clause. Tuntable (talk) 08:17, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not a false statement. It may not be your reading of the EPC, but it is the reading taken by the EPO and at least the courts in Britain. I think your problem is that you disagree with the way the law stands, but that does not mean there is a problem with the article. GDallimore (Talk) 20:31, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I fully agree with GDallimore's reply above.  In a nutshell, the short answer to the question “Is software patentable in Europe or not?” is:  Software is not patentable if the focus is on the software itself (e.g., a software-automated business method itself).  Software is patentable if the focus is on a novel improvement in a technical topic (e.g., a software algorithm, data-structure, and usage context that brings about faster access time).  For example taking this to the Nth degree, I suspect (although this is largely unexplored in case law) that an otherwise unpatentable business method implemented in the logic gates of an ASIC would in fact be patentable in Europe because of the technical improvement of drastically faster speed of integrated-circuit hardware when compared with sequentially-executed instructions in software, assuming that the drastic speed improvement itself was valuable.  Likewise for the software-like case of emulating that hardware in a kind of ‘software’ as loadable gate-array in an FPGA.  And likewise, the otherwise-unpatentable business method might be patentable in Europe if cleverly implemented on a massive array of parallel sequential-instruction processors, if a drastic speed improvement without the need for custom hardware is effected. —96.226.235.96 (talk) 15:02, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is software patentable in Europe or Not? 

message: Total wikipedia amateur here, but I work in the patent industry:
"The position in Europe can be contrasted with that of other countries such as the USA and Australia. In these countries, the mere use of a computer is sufficient to make a business method patentable even if the computer is not being used in a novel or inventive way and only the underlying business method provides the patentable features."
This seems to be outdated given recent developments in US patent law.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Corp._v._CLS_Bank_Int%27l
An abstract idea, such as a business method (financial hedging in the case of Alice) is not patentable simply because it is implemented on generic computer hardware. Rather, the claims must include limitations which amount to significantly more than the claimed abstract idea, and the generic computer components typically recited in those types of claims are no longer sufficient. 
Again, I don't really know anything about how the wiki-editing community goes, but maybe someone should update the article.
70.102.73.244 (talk) 20:23, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Many thanks! I have just removed the outdated paragraph. --Edcolins (talk) 20:39, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  US Patent law