[Fsfe-uk] Wanted: replies to UKPO 2nd Software Patent consultation (Spring 2002)

[James Heald]

I have just found a document from last year where a minister convinces 
the UK Parliament's select committee on European scrutiny that, of all 
the responses to the *second* UK Patent Office consulation (Spring 
2002), when the UKPO wrote back to all of the respondents from the first 
consultaton, the Software Patents directive had the complete undivided 
support of the whole UK Industry:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/cgi-bin/ukparl_hl?DB=ukparl&STEMMER=en&WORDS=softwar+patent+&COLOUR=Red&STYLE=s&URL=/pa/cm200102/cmselect/cmeuleg/152-xli/15216.htm#muscat_highlighter_first_match

Considering that those written back to should have included people like 
Alan Cox, this cliam seems utterly not credible.

If anybody still has file copies of what their answers to this second 
consultation, these could now be *very* useful if the minister's 
comments are to be exposed.


Extracts from the document:

Background

14.2  We noted the Commission's conclusion that the balance of advantage 
lay with harmonisation on the basis of existing EPO practice and with 
making the conditions of patentability more transparent. We also noted 
that the Government's own consultation had reached the conclusion that 
software should not be patentable where there was no technological 
innovation, but that such innovations should not cease to be patentable 
merely because the innovation lay in software. The consultation also 
showed a need for the law to express this more clearly. In relation to 
the draft Directive, we noted that the Government would be consulting on 
how far the proposal met these objectives, and asked the Government to 
provide an analysis of the responses to the consultation.

The Minister' reply

14.3  ... The Minister explains that of those who offered views on the 
draft Directive, all welcomed the aim of setting out and clarifying the 
status quo, which they recognised as being also the Government's position.

Conclusion of the Committee

14.6  ... We note that the consultees all support the aim of the 
Directive in setting out the current status quo on patentability, and 
that this is in accordance with the view of the Government.


[Careful reader: note that what the minister apparently wrote was that 
all who wrote supported the aim of setting out the status quo; not that 
all supported the aim of the Directive.  Neat verbal engineering by Sir 
Humphrey, or what ?]