Re: [Fsfe-uk] UKPatentOffice Workshops

[James Heald]

Just to confirm:

Definition #1 is from the text most recently passed by the Council of 
Ministers.

Definition #2 was submitted by FFII, as an evolution of what the 
Parliament voted for in September 2003.

Definitions #3 and #4 look like homebrew definitions, submitted by 
anti-swpat sympathisers, which may not entirely achieve the effects the 
authors intended.

It's regrettable that there wasn't a definition closer to "technical 
only if it interacts with external hardware devices (beyond the data 
processing)".

What sort of qualitative comments did people make about the definitions? 
 Were the UKPO making a note of such comments ?


One question that's come up on an FFII internal list: can you tell us 
more about this leaflet quoting Intellect (or even post a scan of it)? 
 Was it an Intellect leaflet, distributed by somebody from Intellect ? 
 Or was it a UKPO leaflet, trying to steer the debate?

If you could post the list of case examples to the web, that would I 
think be very useful too.

All best,

   James.



MJ Ray wrote:

> I've written up my notes from today's workshop on "technical
> contribution" and you can read them at
> http://www.affs.org.uk/~mjr/swpatws200503/ - I've other stuff
> here if you want to ask me questions, but I might reply off-list.
> If other people email me to let me know where their notes are,
> I'll link them in.
>
> Given I encountered another person from East Anglia without
> trying and there are 6 workshops in London to come, I asked why
> they hadn't put any in Cambridge. I was told there wasn't enough
> demand. Well, if they don't offer any events near here, of
> course that reduces demand from this area!
>
> On Robin's email: we keep getting told this is just a little
> harmonisation, but it seems to be a harmonisation *upwards* that
> expands the "as such" loophole. At least one of the definitions
> of "technical contribution" considered at today's UKPO workshop
> let thorough pretty much all of the examples in the opinion of
> nearly all people there, which is very worrying. The commission
> press spokesmen don't keep calling it "the software patent
> directive" because it will prevent software patents, do they?
>
> My other eyebrow-raiser: on the terrorism act in Westminster last
> week, the government started ranting about letting the elected
> chamber prevail. On software patents, the UK government acts in
> concert with the Commission to obstruct the EU's elected chamber...